Filip Hronek Can’t Be the Answer to Everything for the Canucks

Rebuilding an NHL team comes with a funny problem: sometimes the players you trust the most are exactly the players you need to protect. Filip Hronek will likely be one of those players for the Vancouver Canucks this season. He is 28, established, experienced and clearly better than most of the other defencemen the Canucks have available. When the game gets difficult, the temptation will be obvious: Put Hronek over the boards.

Need a defensive-zone faceoff? Hronek. Need to protect a lead? Hronek. Need somebody to play 25 minutes? Hronek. And before long, a rebuilding team has its best defenceman playing like it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Canucks’ Problem With Having One Reliable Defenceman

There is nothing wrong with trusting Hronek. In fact, Vancouver might not have a choice. Marcus Pettersson is gone, and the Canucks don’t have another established defenceman who can simply step into Hronek’s role and take the same kind of minutes. Maybe Zeev Buium takes a big step. Maybe Tom Willander does. Maybe somebody else surprises everyone.

From what I’ve seen, Buium and Willander have the potential, and that’s the point of a rebuilding season. Throw them over the boards in tough spots, and give them a chance to show what they can do. That’s the only way to find out.

If Hronek plays 25 or 26 minutes every night because Vancouver doesn’t trust anybody else, the Canucks might win a few more games. They might even make the young players look better because they’re being protected by an experienced defenceman. But what have they actually learned? Probably not enough.

A rebuilding team can’t spend an entire season hiding its weaknesses. At some point, those weaknesses have to be exposed. That’s how you find out which young players can handle the NHL and which ones need more time.

Sometimes Development Means Letting Players Struggle

This is where new head coach Manny Malhotra has a tough job. The easiest thing for a coach is to rely on the player he trusts. They are hired to win games, after all. If Hronek can handle 25 minutes, there will be nights when giving him those minutes feels like the smart decision (from Thomas Drance, “Zeev Buium, Filip Hronek and 3 other key Canucks questions for 2026-27,” The Athletic, August 27, 2026).

And it probably will be. But there is a difference between making the smart decision for the game and making the smart decision for the organization. Vancouver needs to know what it has on defence.

That means Buium and Willander need meaningful opportunities. Other young defencemen need to play in situations that might make them uncomfortable. Somebody needs to discover whether these players can actually become part of the next good Canucks team. Hronek can’t answer those questions. And he shouldn’t be asked to.

The Best Thing Hronek Can Do May Be Play Less

This is the part that sounds strange. The Canucks’ best defence might be to play their best defenceman a little less. Not because Hronek can’t handle the minutes. He clearly can. It’s because Vancouver has too much invested in him to treat every regular-season game like it has to be won at all costs. He’s under contract through 2027-28, has a no-move clause and is an important part of whatever the team eventually becomes.

There is no prize for winning the November minutes battle. The prize is finding out what the defence can look like two or three years from now. That’s why Malhotra’s discipline matters. He can’t simply look down the bench every time things get difficult and think, “Well, Hronek can fix this.”

Hronek Needs to Be Rested; the Youngsters Need to Be Tested

Sometimes a young defenceman has to make the mistake. Sometimes the game has to get away from you. Sometimes the veteran has to play 20 minutes instead of 26. That’s not wasting Hronek’s talent. It’s protecting it.

And maybe that’s one of the hardest parts of rebuilding: understanding that your best player doesn’t always need to do more. Sometimes, especially this season, the smartest thing a team can do is ask him to do a little less.