Zeev Buium’s recent eight-year contract extension makes him the most important figure in the Vancouver Canucks’ ongoing rebuild, at least for the time being. But as central to the long-term plans as Buium has now made himself, he’s still got a ways to go before he starts earning titles like “best Canuck” or “team MVP.” For the time being, those are the exclusive domain of Filip Hronek.

There probably aren’t many people who would dispute that Hronek is the top overall Canuck at this exact moment in time, and it’s probably not all that close a call for most. And that raises an interesting question about where Hronek might rank league-wide.

The Athletic recently placed Hronek right on the periphery of their top-100 players in the NHL. Most rankings of just D place Hronek safely in the top-32, which makes him a number one defender by some definitions.

But Hronek is not just a player, and he’s not just a defender. He’s a right-shot defender, which makes him one of the rarest commodities in the entire sport. With that said, let’s try to figure out exactly where he ranks among the NHL’s best RDs.

Cale Makar: Assuming we won’t get any pushback for naming the $20.4 million man as the league’s best RD, and by a big country mile, too. The platinum standard for RD, or any D, really, in this era.

Moritz Seider: Seider hasn’t won his first Norris yet, but he’s elevated his game to the point where he’s easily one of the best two-way defenders in the entire game. This is the RD who made it possible for the Red Wings to trade Hronek in the first place.

Adam Fox: A bit of the shine has come off of Fox since he won the Norris as a sophomore, but he’s still a regular nominee and just put down one of the best offensive seasons of his career with 53 points in 55 games. He’s still in the upper echelon.

Evan Bouchard: There may be some pushback from this fanbase on any praise of Bouchard, but he’s a player whose flaws tend to get talked about far more than his considerable strengths. Bouchard is already one of the most successful offensive defencemen of all time, and his overall game has improved over time.

Charlie McAvoy: Boston’s top defender hasn’t quite progressed to Norris status as of yet, but he’s been consistently in the next tier down for several years running, and saves his best hockey for the biggest games.

Brock Faber: This is a player who arrived in the league as a ready-made top-pairing two-way defender, and has since added even more of a serious offensive component to his game, with a career-high 51 points last season.

Erik Karlsson: Sure, he’s getting long in the tooth. But Karlsson hasn’t slowed down much, and just put down 66 points in 75 games. He might not win another Norris, but he still belongs a rung below the top notch. 

Seth Jones: This is a tough player to rate, because he suffered a severe career lull before resuscitating himself in Florida. In the end, the fact that Jones played a top-pairing role on a Stanley Cup winner within the past two years probably places him ahead of Hronek, but their overall impacts are comparable.

Noah Dobson: It’s still a little difficult to separate Dobson’s actual from his potential. Still just 26, Dobson has scored as many as 70 points in a season and usually plays top-pairing minutes for Montreal, but is also pretty inconsistent. After those 70 points, he’s posted 39- and 47-point seasons. With him, we start to hit the RDs that one could reasonably prefer Hronek over, though it’s a matter of personal preference.

Colton Parayko: Parayko still rates high enough to make Team Canada, and that’s got to count for something. His size and physicality grant him an element that Hronek doesn’t really have, but Parayko’s overall impact is starting to fall off, along with his counting stats.

John Carlson: Like the other Karlsson, this Carlson tends to get underrated due to his age, but he’s quietly putting up some of the best seasons of his career, including 60 points in 71 games last year. He can still be a top-pairing D on any given night.

Darren Raddysh: We pretty much had to mention Raddysh after he posted 70 points in 73 games and landed an enormous UFA contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. But given that his previous career-high was 37, we’d want to see a little more from Raddysh before picking him over a surer thing in Hronek.

(Note: The first four players on this list were each ranked ahead of Hronek in the latest edition of EA Sports’  NHL ’27. Video games aren’t real life, but it felt right to address them here, with one additional name.)

Brett Pesce: Back with the Hurricanes, Pesce got a lot of praise for being one half of a dynamic defensive duo with Jaccob Slavin. But since leaving Slavin and going to New Jersey, Pesce hasn’t been anywhere near as impressive.

Brandt Clarke: Clarke landed a huge RFA extension with the Kings and now makes more money than Hronek, but it will be a while before he can be said to be a better overall defender.

Rasmus Andersson: This is a player that Canucks fans know all too well. Andersson is sometimes inconsistent and tends to get overrated defensively because he is physical, and those two traits often get conflated. He wasn’t all that impressive after being traded to Vegas, but they signed him to a major extension all the same.

Ryan Pulock: For years, Pulock has been a rock-steady top-pairing defensive defender for the Islanders. But that can be a role with a limited shelf-life, and Pulock has seemed to fall off a bit of late.

Drew Doughty: Like Parayko in the previous section, Doughty deserves a mention for still being on Team Canada’s radar, but at this point, that’s an honorary distinction. Doughty’s best days are definitively behind him.

Looking at the names above, there’s some room for debate, but also enough clarity to give something of a definitive answer to the question of where Hronek ranks league-wide among RD.

The most optimistic takes probably can’t place him any higher than seventh or eighth overall. Depending on one’s opinion on that middle section, a more likely placement for Hronek is at the bottom of the top-10, or perhaps just outside of it.

Even someone overly pessimistic on Hronek would have to admit that he easily and comfortably fits within the top-15.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Where do you think Hronek slots in when ranking the league’s top RDs? Let us know in the comments below!