In Aucoin’s 1998-99 season as a Canucks defenceman he scored 23 goals but fans might remember Mike Keenan’s midseason exit as coach more than Aucoin’s goal-scoring exploits
Considering how well Hughes does exactly that on the ice to elude opponents, it’s fitting.
The Canucks’ team record for goals in a season by a defenceman is 23, set by Aucoin and his big, booming shot in 1998-99.
Adrian’s tracking trends, paying close attention to where hockey seems to be heading. He believes that a player like Hughes skates so well and picks his spots to jump into the offence with such aplomb that “he’s almost like one of the best forwards in the league playing defence, because he’s just everywhere and he still knows how to defend.”
Go ahead and play that forward. With Hughes, 25, and fellow blue liners like Cale Makar, 26, of the Colorado Avalanche, are we getting to point where we won’t designate centres, wingers and defencemen but merely have five skaters on the ice at even strength, shifting back and forth?
It’s a premise you’re starting to hear about more frequently. NHL power-play units with four forwards already have become commonplace.
Adrian talked about a player he knows who recently made a recruiting trip to an NCAA program and was told by the staff there “that’s the way we coach now — every position is interchangeable.”
“If you’re a defenceman up in the play, you’re a forward until you get back and play D,” Aucoin said, expanding on the theory. “And the forward who covers for you is a D until you get back there.
“So you have to know every route, every play, every position. Because if you get caught up and there’s a quick play up, what are you going to do? Come back and play D when you can be at the far blue line and be that stretch forward?
“Not every D can play like that, but a guy like a Hughes is that elite that he can play like that.”
The game is faster than it has ever been. It’s less than physical than it once was. And Aucoin says that defending is about using your skating to take away time and space, and “that’s something a lot of forwards could do well.”
“I was talking to a couple of the coaches here where I’m coaching and said to them ‘I don’t know why more forwards don’t play defence,” Aucoin added.
Aucoin’s 1998-99 season was easily the best goal-scoring campaign of his career. His next highest output was 13 for the New York Islanders in 2003-04, which was the season he made an appearance in the midseason all-star game. He finished with 121 goals in his 1,108 regular season game career.
His ability to hammer the puck from the point showed up on the power play in that 23-goal year in particular, with 18 of those tallies coming on the man advantage. That was third overall in the NHL that season and has him in a tie for sixth best single-season total in Canuck history with outputs from Markus Naslund and Daniel Sedin.
The 23 goals bettered Doug Halward’s 19-goal season in 1982-83 as the Canuck record for goals by a defenceman in a season. Rick Lanz has third spot with 18 goals in 1983-84 and Hughes’ 17 goals last year put him in a five-way tie for fourth.
Through 47 games this year, he’s at 136 shots (2.89 per game), and his 14 goals give him a shooting percentage of 10.3.
“I think it should happen,” Aucoin said of Hughes getting past 23 goals this season. “It might not. You get that dreaded January and February, when you can’t see the end of the season, and then it really ramps up and gets even harder to score because teams are making their pushes (for the playoffs). But just at the the clip he goes at and he’s so involved … it’s incredible.”
Aucoin, who’s an Ottawa native, was a fifth-round pick by the Canucks in 1992 out of Boston University and he trails only first rounders Roman Hamrlik (1,395) and Sergei Gonchar (1,301) in games played by members of the draft class.
Aucoin made his NHL debut on the road against the San Jose Sharks on May 3, 1995, which was the regular season finale for Vancouver in a season cut to 48 games due to the owners locking out the players over labour issues. He scored on his first-ever shot on goal that night in a 3-3 tie.
Aucoin played for seven teams in his career but maintains Vancouver was his favourite stop. He loved playing in a Canadian market, and there was still the glow from the team’s 1994 Stanley Cup Final run.
Those Vancouver teams weren’t particularly good, though. Aucoin got into just 10 playoff games with the Canucks. Fans might remember that 1998-99 season more for Mike Keenan’s midseason exit as coach than Aucoin’s goal-scoring exploits
Aucoin was traded away Feb. 7, 2001 to Tampa Bay in the deal that brought the Canucks goaltender Dan Cloutier, so Aucoin was just leaving as the group featuring coach Marc Crawford and the West Coast Express line of Naslund, Todd Bertuzzi and Brendan Morrison was starting to take hold.
“I loved every minute except for Marc Crawford at the end of my time there,” Aucoin said. “We just didn’t get along. I can’t blame him solely. He would tell me to do something and I wouldn’t understand. He was actually a really good coach.
“Vancouver was just a dream come true. I had great experiences in other places for different reasons but Vancouver … we had such a great group of guys. I even liked Keenan. I mean, I hated him at first, because he didn’t like me, but then he liked me and I was playing 26 minutes a night at the end, so I loved him then.
“I came in at such a good time in Vancouver because the city was so positive with the team. You had the Griffiths family (as owners), that was so nice and so good. Then you had John McCaw, who wasn’t necessarily a hockey man, but he made it a world-class situation. We had our own jet. We were treated like kings. And we weren’t good.
“We had Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Mark Messier, Markus Naslund, and we didn’t make the playoffs. We were on a decline and was still treated so well by the fans. It sucked that we couldn’t be better then, but I’ve watched them come back and play great and saw all the accolades they received.”
Kyle played for the Tri-City Storm and Muskegon in the USHL before moving onto Harvard. Cameron was ranked No. 203 amongst North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting in their midseason ranking for this year’s draft.