On Wednesday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins added injury to insult for the Vancouver Canucks.
It was already embarrassing that the Canucks fell 5-4 to the basement-dwelling Penguins after spotting the Penguins a four-goal lead 23 minutes into the game. They didn’t need any long-term consequences to go along with that short-term shame.
In the final minute, however, Filip Hronek was down low in the offensive zone, looking to help the Canucks tie up the game, when he got shoved by Penguins defenceman Jack St. Ivany and fell awkwardly into the boards. Hronek was clearly in distress and skated directly to the bench, doubled over in pain.
There’s every indication that Hronek suffered an injury to his right shoulder on the play, with Chek TV’s Rick Dhaliwal reporting that it “looks like a separated shoulder.”
Hronek could be out for around six weeks
This wouldn’t be Hronek’s first shoulder injury. In fact, he had a shoulder injury when the Canucks traded for him during the 2022-23 season, leading to the Canucks shutting him down for the season so he could fully recover. It’s unclear which shoulder was the issue for Hronek then, as he’s never been overly forthcoming about such things.
According to Daily Faceoff’s Irfaan Gaffar, “Hronek is going to be out a while,” though the injury won’t require surgery. Depending on the severity of the injury, the typical timeline for a separated shoulder is six weeks.
That’s bad news for the Canucks, whose defence corps was already looking shaky before losing a top-pairing defenceman. Hronek hasn’t produced a ton offensively this season, but he’s still second on the team in ice time, averaging 23:36 per game, and plays a role in helping Quinn Hughes dominate.
That’s not an easy player to replace. So, what are the Canucks going to do without Filip Hronek?
Without Hronek, the Canucks' top-four on defence looks sparse
We know the initial answer to that question already: they have called up Mark Friedman and sent down Arshdeep Bains to make room for him on the roster. That even lowers the team’s overall cap hit, so they can keep accruing cap space.
That gives the Canucks four right-side defencemen even with Hronek out, though it’s not necessarily the most impressive list: Tyler Myers, Noah Juulsen, Vincent Desharnais, and Friedman.
Just one of those four could be said to be a top-four defenceman — Tyler Myers — and there’s a strong argument to be made that he should be a third-pairing defenceman at this point in his career.
In addition, the Canucks have had serious issues with the left side of their defence after Quinn Hughes.
Carson Soucy has spent most of the season on the second pairing with Myers and has struggled significantly. He has the worst corsi percentage among Canucks regulars at 38.9% and the Canucks have been out-scored 17-to-10 in his minutes at 5-on-5, which is the worst 5-on-5 goal differential on the team.
Recent attempts to move Erik Brännström into a second-pairing role in place of Soucy have not gone well. While Brännström has thrived on a sheltered third-pairing, he’s had a hard time with the tougher match-ups required of a second-pairing defenceman.
There’s a case to be made that with Hronek out, the Canucks have just one legitimate top-four defenceman. Thankfully, it’s the reigning Norris Trophy winner.
Who should play with Quinn Hughes?
Hughes has shown that he can carry a lesser defenceman in a top-pairing role in the past. He did so with Juulsen during the 2022-23 season and he’s always had strong numbers with Tyler Myers, though those minutes have typically come when the team is trailing and needs a goal, so they could be skewed.
The Canucks could match Hughes with Juulsen or Myers again or they could try Desharnais or Friedman in that role. Hughes is good enough that he could probably make any of those combinations work, even if it might limit his ability to tilt the ice the way he does with Hronek.
It’s likely that Myers would be kept away from Hughes, as he’s the closest they have to a true second-pairing defenceman right now. Reuniting Soucy and Myers and throwing them to the wolves in a shutdown role might be the Canucks’ only option right now, allowing Brännström to get back to controlling possession against easier match-ups on the third pairing with one of Juulsen, Desharnais, or Friedman.
It's interesting that the Canucks called up Friedman as opposed to Cole McWard, who was given an opportunity to play with Quinn Hughes at the start of last season. Friedman has always been a seventh defenceman — the type of player you can plug into your bottom pairing in a pinch — while McWard might have a bit more upside.
A trade for a defenceman seems inevitable
Where all of this seems to be leading, of course, is a trade.
Even before Hronek suffered his injury, the Canucks needed to add a defenceman. It’s a move that the Canucks would probably like to delay as long as possible in order to accrue enough cap space to add even more pieces at the trade deadline, but Hronek’s injury might force their hand.
Rumours have swirled around David Jiricek, the sixth overall pick from the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, who hasn’t been happy with his place in the Columbus Blue Jackets system. Jiricek is 6’4” with a right-hand shot and still holds promise as a potential top-pairing defenceman. Given the need on the right side for the Canucks, Jiricek could immediately get the minutes he was denied in Columbus.
The issue is that Canucks would have to pay handsomely for the 21-year-old and have limited prospects to spare.
According to a report from Dhaliwal, the Canucks inquired about Jiricek, but were told they “didn’t have the assets for Jiricek.” It’s entirely likely that the Blue Jackets’ ask would have started with top defenceman prospect Tom Willander and only gone up from there.
Then there’s Marcus Pettersson from the Pittsburgh Penguins. While he’s a left-shot defenceman, he’s played on the right side before, so could fill in while Hronek is out, then move back to the left side to bolster the second pairing behind Hughes once Hronek returns.
The issue for Pettersson is that he doesn’t really fit the Canucks’ need for someone who can break the puck out on the second pairing. He’s more of the steady, stay-at-home type. He would be an upgrade for the Canucks but maybe not the exact player they need.
With the Penguins looking for young players to support a quick rebuild, you can expect the ask for Pettersson to start with Nils Höglander, with additional draft picks on top.
The Canucks’ options aren’t limited to Jiricek or Pettersson, of course. There are plenty of other defencemen potentially available on the trade market, such as Jacob Trouba, Ivan Provorov, Cam Fowler, Rasmus Ristolainen, Will Borgen, Mike Matheson, and possibly even Bowen Byram. Finding the right deal will be a major challenge for Patrik Allvin, but he’s shown he’s up to the task in the past.
Could free agency provide a temporary solution while Hronek is out?
There’s one other possibility worth considering: free agency.
There are a few veteran defencemen who are still without a contract over a month into the season, such as Mark Giordano, John Klingberg, Justin Schultz, and Kevin Shattenkirk.
Klingberg, Schultz, and Shattenkirk are all right-shot defencemen. Giordano is a left shot but has played on the right side before.
Sure, Giordano is 41, Klingberg is coming off hip surgery that will likely keep him out until at least January, Schultz is playing in Switzerland, and Shattenkirk is reportedly considering retirement but sometimes you roll your dice and take your chances.
Maybe an opportunity to play on a Canucks team with Stanley Cup aspirations — not to mention on a pairing with arguably the best defenceman in the world — would be attractive enough for someone like Giordano or Schultz to accept a cheap, one-year deal.
At the very least, that would be a cheap way to temporarily deal with the tough situation of Hronek’s injury.
