The Vancouver Canucks are one of the best defensive teams in the NHL.

That’s stunning considering where they were last season: a defensive disaster that constantly gave up dangerous chances off the rush and cross-seam passes. This season, with an overhaul of the defence corps and a more defensively-detailed system under head coach Rick Tocchet, the Canucks are a brand new team. Only the Winnipeg Jets and Florida Panthers have allowed fewer goals against at 5-on-5 than the Canucks and it’s not just goaltending — they’ve also allowed the fourth-fewest shots on goal at 5-on-5.

While the Canucks have had some outstanding offensive performances this season, with J.T. Miller hitting 100 points and Brock Boeser scoring his 40th goal on Monday, it’s their defence that has been the biggest factor in getting them to a position to potentially win the Pacific Division.

It could also be the biggest factor in whether or not the Canucks make a deep run in the playoffs. That makes it essential that they get their defence pairings right.

The Canucks have just one set defence pairing

Aside from brief appearances from Akito Hirose and Cole McWard, the Canucks have used eight defencemen this season. In order of total time on ice with the Canucks, they are Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Ian Cole, Tyler Myers, Nikita Zadorov, Noah Juulsen, Carson Soucy, and Mark Friedman.

From those eight defencemen, 18 different defence pairings have spent at least 30 minutes together at 5-on-5. Ten of those pairings have spent at least 100 minutes together. Just one of them has played together for over 350 minutes this season: Hughes and Hronek.

What that means is the Canucks have a lot of different options for how to construct their defence pairings as they head into the postseason.

Here are the defence pairings the Canucks have used recently, including their win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday:

Quinn Hughes – Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy – Tyler Myers
Nikita Zadorov – Ian Cole

Much like how we looked at the forward lines earlier this week, we can look at the results the Canucks have had with each defence pairing on the ice to see if we can determine anything about which pairings make the most sense.

We’ll start with a sortable and searchable table so you can see the same basic data I’m working with from Evolving-Hockey. You can put a defenceman’s name in the search bar and isolate all the pairings with that specific player.