Horvat happy to carry transition torch for young Canucks

GAME DAY: VANCOUVER AT LOS ANGELES, 7 P.M.

Alex Burrows knew all along what Bo Horvat knows now.

Youth shall be served — and the Vancouver Canucks are finally serving up more than a few appetizers.

Factor in players on the team’s National Hockey League roster, those who should crack it next fall and those on the development horizon, and there are 15 skaters in the system under 23 years of age.

The Canucks have made room for Nikita Tyamkin and Troy Stecher, and have signalled the arrival of the improved Brendan Gaunce. All three are 22. They’ll have Nikolay Goldobin, 21, and Brock Boeser, 20, and hopefully a mature and motivated Jake Virtanen, 20, next season.

It’s also not a stretch to suggest that Olli Juolevi, 18, will be fasttracked and developed at the NHL level and that red-hot NCAA sniper Adam Gaudette, 20, who has 25 goals in 33 games at Northeastern, has been taking major leaps in his development.

All this is comforting to Bo Horvat.

The third-year centre is 21, carries himself like he’s 25 and often carries the torch for those who need to relate to a younger voice.

The future captain knows there are going to be growing pains to replace the leadership, versatility and grit provided by the departed Burrows and Jannik Hansen. He knows scoring will always be a challenge and that the temptation to delve into costly free agency for aging veterans should be tempered by having a collective franchise vision to patiently build a young, entertaining and competitive club.

“It’s great what we’re doing,” Horvat said Thursday. “We’re getting younger and faster and we’re heading in the right direction. That’s where the league is going.

“You see Toronto with all the young guys and how well they [Leafs] are doing and we’re starting to head in that direction. It’s going to be good for us.”

The teacher in Willie Desjardins will like the manner in which the Canucks are trending.

“I think we’ve had a great year of development,” said the Canucks coach. “A lot of guys are prepared to take a step. [Ben] Hutton has had his ups and downs, but he’s getting closer and Tryamkin is still going through that process.

“We do have a good group of young guys and Brendan Gaunce is coming into his own, but we need to keep building on it.”

Making a commitment to Sven Baertschi, 24, and taking a chance on Markus Granlund, 23, will help expand the next leadership core. Not that it’s going to be easy. Horvat’s fast maturation came from watching how the traded Burrows and Baertschi prepared for games and left it all on the ice.

“Burr was such a vocal guy,” said Horvat. “He talked all the time about what we should do, how to be a good leader and a good teammate and we’re definitely going to miss that. But he’s taught a lot of guys that and I think a lot can step in.”

Hansen’s consistency and ability to get under everybody’s skin isn’t easily replaceable. He was difficult to coach at times — especially in video sessions — because Hansen always had an opinion and he was often right. That spoke to how his confidence on the ice and in the room grew over 10 years in Vancouver. That kind of stuff rubs off.

“That [chirping] is probably the biggest thing I learned from Jannik,” laughed Horvat. “Just learning how to stand your ground and how to win an argument because he’s never wrong and he’s never lost an argument, that’s for sure.

“But he was a good teammate and a good guy to have around and we’ll miss him, too.”