Ahead of the Vancouver Canucks’ Sunday morning match against the Detroit Red Wings, we thought we’d bring up a previous story done by the Athletic’s Harman Dayal about how the top pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek were almost both the top pairing but for the Detroit Red Wings.
We all know the Canucks acquired Hronek from the Red Wings back in 2023 in a trade that sent their recently acquired New York Islanders first-round pick – acquired from the Bo Horvat trade – and their own second-round pick. And the Canucks drafted Hughes seventh overall in the 2018 draft.
The biggest surprise was seeing Hughes fall to seven. Other teams had to help the Canucks out to allow that to happen. Needing a centreman, the Montreal Canadiens (third overall) and Arizona Coyotes (fifth overall) reached by selecting Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Barrett Hayton.
Here is how the top 10 of the 2018 draft went, with where each player in the top 10 was mocked to go according to the NHL’s final mock draft and who was mocked with that pick.
In the story, Dayal details all the picks leading up to Canucks’ pick, detailing why each team above them passed on the defenceman.
Here is Dayal’s write-up for why the Canadiens selected Kotkaniemi over Hughes:
“It ultimately came down to positional need — the Canadiens had their eyes on a centre and were, in fact, more likely to take Barrett Hayton (they seriously considered him according to a league source) than they were either of Zadina or Tkachuk. Montreal’s picks from the 2018 and 2019 drafts say all you need to know about the organization’s preference in picking for need.”
Here is Dayal’s write-up for why the Coyotes selected Hayton over Hughes:
“According to Bernhardt, the Coyotes had no on-ice concerns with Hughes — they loved his hockey IQ, recognized his elite skating ability and identified that he was a smart defender with his stick in spite of his size. Where Hayton gained an edge over Hughes is in some of Arizona’s off-ice testing, but more importantly because of the premium the organization placed on centres after Chayka realized how coveted a commodity they were on the trade market.
“Combine how highly Arizona valued centres with the Coyotes’ need for high-end pivots and the strength of their backend and you begin to understand the thought process that led to Hayton’s selection over Hughes.”
With Filip Zadina still available after being projected to go fourth overall, it presented the Red Wings with an opportunity they did not want to pass on. Dayal spoke with Red Wings GM at the time, Ken Holland, about his thought process when deciding between Zadina and a defenceman:
“We did our ranking, our final list and my expectations coming in were that we were going to take a defenceman,” said Holland. “We didn’t expect Zadina to be on the board when we picked and we were excited to get him in Detroit. He had a great year in Quebec, rookie of the year (in the QMJHL), fourth or fifth or sixth in scoring, seven goals in seven games at the World Junior Championships. We were going for a guy that we thought could be a scorer in the top six.”
Now, Holland didn’t disclose which of the defencemen the Red Wings were going to select, but it’s not hard to imagine them highly considering Hughes. Especially considering he was one of the top two-ranked blueliners left on the board and that he played college hockey in their backyard at Michigan University.
Holland then detailed the decision further, stating that previous choices made by the organization ultimately influence the teams’ future decisions. For example, the Red Wings had defenceman Nick Jensen, Xavier Ouellet and Joe Hicketts as defencemen under the age of 26 on the roster, with Dennis Cholowiski (drafted in the first round in 2016), Vili Saarijarvi (drafted in the third round in the 2015 draft) and Hronek (drafted in the second round in 2016) as defensive prospects.
Having five young defencemen in the system, they ultimately elected to go with the falling forward over what ended up being the best player available and lost out on having what is the Canucks’ top pairing on their team now instead.
Fast forward to present day, where Hughes is the reigning Norris trophy winner with 358 points in 387 NHL games, and Hronek has 214 points in 411 games; the Red Wings organization are kicking themselves as their current blueline (Moritz Seider, Simon Edvinsson, Ben Chairot, Jeff Petry, Erik Gustafsson and Justin Holl) has the lowest amount of points across the entire league.
Unfortunately for Hronek, he injured his shoulder against the Pittsburgh Penguins and won’t get his shot at redemption against his former team. However, Hughes will play a big role in tomorrow morning’s game in a state he’s familiar playing in during his college days.
The current Canucks have a lot of thanks to give to the Holland and the Red Wings organization for, in one way or another, gifted Vancouver the top pairing they have today.
