First off before I begin shredding Bo Horvat the hockey player I want to say that from the outside looking in Horvat seems like an incredibly nice young man. He's a super good guy by all reports. A really high character guy. He cares about his team and the city and the fans. He's a genuinely nice person and an outstanding character by all reports. So this is nothing against him as a person.
But it is a critique of him as a hockey player and I have to call it like I see it even if I don't enjoy it.
$33 million US ($40 million Canadian).
That's hard to get over.
What are you getting for that $5 million + US per year?
Not a whole hell of a lot.
He has 37 points in 53 games this year. That includes a whopping 19 assists.
He's not a center. The more I see the guy play the more I think he's better off as a left winger. I don't need to see fancy stats to see that he just doesn't generate offense for his teammates.
All I have to do is look at the scoreboard - over three games this year without scoring a goal and he's supposedly the number one center. That's on him. Period.
It was the same goalless streak in 2016.
Every single year after game 60 Bo Horvat's numbers just die. Absolutely fall off a cliff. And you can't simply ignore it and say, well, he's trying really hard.
Sure. I can see he's trying hard. There's no denying that.
But what I can't deny either is that he sucks as a hockey player. Well, that's probably too harsh. He's a decent player. I think he's a top 6 winger.
But what I don't see? He doesn't hit. He doesn't fight. He doesn't bowl goalies over. He doesn't start bench clearing brawls. He doesn't stinky glove opponents. He doesn't use his 235 pounds to enforce his will on the game.
He just doesn't have a mean streak. The potential is there but it just doesn't seem to be in his nature to hurt opponents. There's no Cory Perry in him. There's no Ryan Kesler in him.
He's not very good at killing penalties.
He's Okay in the faceoff dot. He's not super awesome.
He can score 20 goals.
That's just not a very high bar.
And clearly without Brock Boeser the entire team nosedives into the toilet of obscurity and that includes Horvat.
I see Horvat getting frustrated. He's trying hard. But every year he just can't get it done. And that's a cold hard fact staring everyone in the face.
Sure, they're injured. They're missing a ton of players. And that can't be denied.
But he falls off a cliff despite more ice time, more opportunities. They're not asking for wins. They're asking just for a goal. A measly solitary goal.
His job is to setup goal scorers.
I just don't see it. He's just not a natural center. He's not creative enough. He's more of a power winger than he is a center.
So what do you do with him?
I think you either move him to Left Wing and accept you have a $5 million 20 goal scorer Left Wing - OR -
You put him on the trade block.
At 22 years of age you could wait too.
And I would support that as well. But if you could use a Horvat to move up from say a third overall spot in this year's draft to a first overall draft (flipping picks as well) - I think you have to pull the trigger.
I just don't see Horvat as a valuable commodity moving forward. Again, purely as a hockey assessment. Because as a person he's terrific.
But I've seen him for 5 seasons. He's improved greatly. But I think the Canucks are seeing top-end from him.
I do think at some point he'll get to 30 goals. But that's just not going to win you a Stanley Cup.
Could he develop a mean streak? Maybe. He is only 22. At some point he might consider playing like he means it. But right now he's just a gentle giant out there.
Captain material? No. Absolutely not. You have to lead from the front.
He's behind Daniel Sedin who is possibly retiring and is 37 and who is missing all of his front teeth and who played missing all of his front teeth.
It sucks. But it's realistic.
http://www.michaelmunro.ca/Hockey_Sucks.html
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