If we’re asking the question of “Who is the singular greatest defenceman in the Pacific Division right now,” it’s one of those slam-dunk, automatic responses: it’s Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks, and it’s not even close.
In fact, we can safely go ahead and note that Hughes would also hold that distinction if he played in the Atlantic or Metropolitan Divisions, too. His only current real competition for the title of Top D is Cale Makar, and he plays in the Central.
But if we extend the question beyond that, to the entire top-four of various bluelines, do Hughes and the Canucks still come out on top? Against recent historical trends, the answer for the 2025/26 season seems to be ‘yes.’
There’s a reason we’re focusing on the top-four here. The bottom-end of the Vancouver blueline is still a little undetermined. Chances are best it’ll be some rotation of Derek Forbort, Elias Pettersson, Tom Willander, and Victor Mancini down there, but which, in what order, and how frequently is yet to be decided.
But the Vancouver top-four is as rock-solid as it’s been for the last couple of decades. Joining Hughes on the top pairing on the depth chart, and most likely in real life, is Filip Hronek. Coming in behind him is the newly-acquired, newly-signed, and newly-minted 3D, Marcus Pettersson. And then rounding out the quartet is Tyler Myers – at least until that role is (hopefully) usurped by one of Willander or Mancini.
So, while we’re on the subject, how does this 2025/26 Canucks top-four stack up against the other various top-fours of the Pacific Division this year?
Anaheim Ducks
Jackson LaCombe – Radko Gudas
Olen Zellweger – Jacob Trouba
The Anaheim Ducks are going to be very good in the near-future. But they’re not quite there yet. LaCombe just had a career-defining sophomore campaign where he notched 43 points, became Anaheim’s top defender, and maybe put himself on the radar for the 2026 US Olympic Team.
That being said, LaCombe is just a year and three months younger than Hughes, and has a long way to go before they’re said to be anything close to comparable.
Beyond LaCombe, the Ducks have a couple aging, but still ultra-physical, veterans in Gudas and Trouba. And then they’ve got a ton of other young up-and-comers, including Zellweger, Pavel Mintyukov, Drew Helleson, and Tristan Luneau.
Chances seem good that the Anaheim blueline is eventually going to be a real strength of theirs. But they’ll have to experience some growing pains before they get there.
For 2025/26, the Canucks still have a stronger top-four than the Ducks.
Calgary Flames
Kevin Bahl – Mackenzie Weegar
Joel Hanley – Rasmus Andersson
It may be the case that Weegar is the second-best overall defender in the Pacific, after Hughes. He’s got a real shot at the 2026 Canadian Olympic Team, and remains one of the most versatile blueliners in the game.
Past him, the Flames may be flirting with a rebuild, but they’ve still got a capable defence. Andersson is a pending UFA, but for the time being, he’s got to be the best second-best RD in the division. Bahl has found his feet in Calgary and was just signed to a lengthy extension.
It’s past this top-three that the Flames run into trouble. None of the rest of their depth contains much in the way of difference-making, with names like Hanley, Jake Bean, Daniil Miromanov, and Brayden Pachal rounding out the set.
What the Flames do have are a number of great blueline prospects, led by 19-year-old RD Zayne Parekh, who could become a full-time NHLer as soon as this year. Unlike with Anaheim, however, it’s tough to tell if the youth contingent will arrive in Calgary soon enough to beat the inevitable decline of their older players.
With all due respect to Weegar, the Canucks still clearly have a better top-four than the Flames for 2025/26.
Edmonton Oilers
Mattias Ekholm – Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse – Jake Walman (LD)
It can be really tough to know what to make of the Edmonton blueline. On the one hand, it’s been good enough to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row. On the other hand, it’s been a clear weak link at times that the Oilers seem to have succeeded in spite of.
What we do know is that the Oilers will be paying nearly as much cap hit for their top two blueline earners (Bouchard and Nurse at $19.75 million) as the Canucks will be paying for their entire top- four (a combined $23.6 million). And yet, they’ll be pulling less overall value out of their top-four as the Canucks do from Hughes alone.
The Oilers’ top-four, even with players playing out of position, remains better on ice than it looks on paper. But it is still a clear step or two behind the quality of Vancouver’s.
For 2025/26, the Canucks have a more capable top-four than do the Oilers.
Los Angeles Kings
Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Brian Dumoulin – Cody Ceci
The Kings were supposed to be really good by now. For a while there, they had the top-ranked prospect cupboard in the entire league, and that collection of prospects included a number of high-profile young defenders.
Halfway through the decade, however, the young Kings have failed to make as much noise as expected, and LA continues to rely too heavily on aging veterans. The 35-year-old Doughty still carries too much of a load, as evidenced by the Kings choosing to go out and hand some overpriced contracts to veterans Dumoulin and Ceci this offseason.
Whenever Brandt Clarke breaks into the top-four, that’ll be a good thing for Los Angeles. But for now, they’re a group that’s mostly on the wrong side of 30 and, besides Doughty, each appears to be one rung higher on the depth chart than they rightly should be.
For 2025/26, the Canucks’ top-four stays ahead of the Kings’.
San Jose Sharks
Mario Ferraro – Timothy Liljegren
Dmitry Orlov – John Klingberg
We can keep this one pretty short. The San Jose Sharks are still in the midst of a full-scale rebuild. By all accounts, it’s going quite well. But the Sharks missed out on a chance to select Matthew Schaefer with the 1OA this year, and that means their blueline is very much a work-in-long-term-progress.
The Sharks added some short-term veterans in Orlov, Klingberg, and Nick Leddy this offseason, presumably just to give their young superstar forwards a little bit more consistent support from the back-end. But each of them is just a placeholder, and only Orlov really has much business still being in an NHL top-four.
As young D like Sam Dickinson begin to appear, the Sharks’ blueline will get better.
For 2025/26, however, the Canucks’ top-four is several steps ahead of the Sharks’.
Seattle Kraken
Vince Dunn – Brandon Montour
Jamie Oleksiak – Adam Larsson
The rivalry between Vancouver and Seattle hasn’t quite got off the ground yet, and that’s in part due to the Kraken’s own inability to launch. They’re still finding an identity in Year Five of their existence, and are projected to once again float around the mushy middle in 2025/26.
Their blueline, however, does look pretty good on paper – honestly, one of the better ones we’ve looked at today. Dunn is a perennial Norris vote-receiver. Larsson and Oleksiak are two towering defenders that fall into the camp of ‘difficult to play against.’
But the Kraken signed Montour to big money after a career season that very much looked like a one-and-done. At the same time, they’ve yet to develop much in the way of young, NHL-ready blueline prospects.
That’s left a strange situation in which a brand-new team has an aging blueline and no youth movement ready to take over.
Now, for 2025/26, and into the foreseeable future, the Canucks have the best top-four in the PNW.
Vegas Golden Knights
Noah Hanifin – Shea Theodore (LD)
Brayden McNabb – Zach Whitecloud
We arranged this list alphabetically, but had we arranged it for effect, we probably would have concluded with Vegas, anyway.
There’s really only one other Pacific team whose top-four can compete with the Canucks’, and it’s that of the Golden Knights.
Now, the Vegas blueline took a massive hit this offseason with Alex Pietrangelo’s pseudo-retirement. They’ve lost not only their top defender overall, but also one of the best RDs in the league. Behind Pietrangelo, they’ve got just Theodore playing his off-side, Whitecloud, and the young Kaeden Korczak.
That should mean a step back for the Knights this year, especially given that Nicolas Hague was shipped off, too. But where does that leave them, vis-à-vis Vancouver?
If we go head-to-head on it, it probably looks something like this:
Hughes > Theodore
Hronek < Hanifin
M. Pettersson > McNabb
Myers < Whitecloud
Which looks incredibly even.
We’re tempted to give the nod to the Canucks on the strength of Hughes alone – well and above the rest of the pack – but then the Vegas unit, as a whole, has certainly accomplished more than has the Canucks’.
Both top-fours have their share of health concerns. In the end, which performs better in 2025/26 may just come down to which suffers fewer injuries.
There’s a perspective here where the Canucks have the better top-four, and thus the best top-four in the Pacific Division for 2025/26. But if anyone prefers the Vegas top-four, it’s tough to tell them they’re wrong.
For now, it might be fairest to say that Vancouver and Vegas are tied for the best top-fours in the Pacific for the time being – and that the real answer will be determined on the ice.
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