HORVAT’S HOPING TO CATCH FIRE
Slow start: Horvat isn’t scoring and his team isn’t winning. Those problems are related
“My first year, I scored 18 goals in 50 games. The second year was tougher. The first one, nobody expects anything from you. You can only surprise people. When you do well, the expectations go higher. But it’s probably worse because everyone around the league is now paying attention to you.”
— Canucks winger Radim Vrbata
Radim Vrbata was a 20-yearold rookie with the Colorado Avalanche in 200102. In his second National Hockey League season, Vrbata scored 11 times in 66 games before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Vancouver Canucks are not trading Bo Horvat.
The 20-year-old second-year centre could score 11 times in his own net this season, finish minus-gazillion, carve his initials into Shane O’Brien’s old bar stool at the Roxy, back into owner Francesco Aquilini’s car and run federally for the Conservatives, and the Canucks are still not trading Horvat. But it will be better for everyone if he does well.
Seven games into his second season, before which the forward swore the sophomore jinx exists only if you create it, Horvat has one point and is minus-4 and has, more or less, already retreated to Vancouver’s third line from the second.
You could hardly blame Horvat for thinking wistfully about his halcyon days as a 19-yearold, when he made the NHL on the Canucks’ fourth line and each goal was like a lottery win, winning a faceoff against Ryan Getzlaf drove a full 24- hour news cycle and the robust forward needed mostly to just work hard and not get scored on.
But after Horvat scored 10 second-half goals as a rookie and quickly became one of the Canucks’ best forwards, expectations for this season became a little more onerous. As Vrbata said, Horvat isn’t surprising anyone anymore.
Horvat’s slow start matters only because the Canucks have lost the first three games of a five-game homestand, which continues tonight against the Detroit Red Wings.
Horvat scored a power-play goal two weeks ago and hasn’t an even-strength point this season. His team-worst minus rating is a little misleading because he was dash-three in one game and his even-strength Corsi of 47.4 per cent is mid-pack for the Canucks. Horvat has won 56.9 per cent of his faceoffs, which has helped the Canucks lead the NHL at 53.8 per cent, an astonishing upgrade from their 29th ranking in the circle last season.
But Horvat is not generating offence and the Canucks aren’t winning. Those problems are connected.
“Obviously, you put pressure on yourself to put up points,” Horvat said after Friday’s practice, which followed a 3-2 loss to the Washington Capitals. “But the more I (focus on it), the worse it’s going to be for me. If I’m pushing and pushing for points and try to get that kind of stuff, I think it’s going to backfire on me. If I just go play my game and focus on the defensive part of the game, eventually the offence is going to come.
“Last year, I was playing against third- and fourth-line guys. This year I’m playing against the top two lines. Obviously, it’s tougher. These guys are good. It’s been tough, but I’ll figure it out.”
Partly because he carries himself like a future captain and has had a maturity to his game from the start, partly because the Canucks have two teenagers on the team for the first time in a quarter-century, it’s easy to forget Horvat is only 20 and by any NHL measure is inexperienced.
“I know I don’t see him as a 20-year-old,” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. “When I look at who I’m going to match against, big guys, top lines, I look at him as a guy who can match up against any guy in the league. I have lots of confidence in his ability. He’s trying to do a lot. How can you fault somebody for wanting to win?”
After Thursday’s loss, when the Canucks blew a 2-1 third-period lead and Horvat became part of a three-line rotation, Desjardins said: “The second year is tough sometimes. You want him just to develop. He’s 20 years old, and he’s a real good 20-year-old hockey player — one of the best in the league. The year hasn’t gone the way he wants, but he’s still a real solid player.”
The year, like Horvat, is extremely young. The Canucks have 75 games to go.
“When you start hearing (expectations) left and right, it gets to you,” veteran winger Alex Burrows said. “But my best advice would be to zone it out and focus internally. Nobody ever told me, we need 30 goals from you. All we want to do is win games … and make our goal of making the playoffs, and once we’re there we’ll have another goal. Bo shouldn’t be worried about not scoring right now. It’s going to come. I guarantee you he’s going to score plenty of goals.”
Can we get that in writing please?
Burrows, 34, scored seven goals in 43 games as a fourthline NHL rookie, then managed only three in 81 games as a sophomore. It wasn’t until his fourth season that he scored 28 goals.
“I’m obviously still young and have a lot of learning to do,” Horvat said. “At the same time, I’m mature enough to know I have lots of responsibilities with this team. If I don’t play well, the results and where we finish (are affected). If I start putting the puck in the net, hopefully we’ll start winning some hockey games.”
You’d never guess he was 20 unless you looked at the scoring stats.