Horvat signs six-year, $33-million deal
Young centre ensures he will be future face of Canucks after signing rich deal
PENTICTON It’s 2013, John Tortorella is the coach and the Sedins are still the Sedins in all their glorious glory.
Bo Horvat has just finished his first training camp. In an interview he’s asked how it went.
“I said ‘I want to be like the Sedins,’ ” Horvat recalled blurting out. “They win the fitness testing every year. They’re freaks on the ice, they ’re amazing humans off it.
“That’s how I wanted to be. Not just on the ice. I could see how they handle themselves, in the lockerroom and in the community, it’s incredible.”
This week Horvat took a big step toward being more like the Sedins. He signed a monster six-year, $33-million contract. It ensures he will be the Canucks’ centrepiece when the Sedins drift over the horizon for good.
Most in Vancouver want to love this contract because most in Vancouver love Horvat. He is not the perfect hockey player, but he is perfect for the Lower Mainland. His strikingly placid disposition is suggestive of an athlete who is the master of his domain, put together and in control. He can’t always be that, but it’s how he’s always presented himself.
And that is how you handle a volatile Canadian hockey market. Not just anyone can do it.
Horvat also loves the game, deeply.
The contract is everything Horvat could have hoped for when the negotiations started four months ago. It matches Jonathan Drouin, an elite scoring forward who has better underlying numbers, has had a big post-season run and outpaces Horvat in points per game (0.58 to 0.51).
Other than the salary and draft year, the pair are nothing alike. It is curious then Drouin was one of the comparables brought up by the Canucks on Friday.
“When you’re doing a negotiation there are names the agents bring up to say they want this type of money or that type of money,” Canucks GM Jim Benning said.
So who did the Horvat camp use as a comparable?
“You’ll find out, but there’s someone on the high end and you guys have talked about him already. I’ve heard you guys talk about him,” Benning said. “There’s the high end and then there’s where they think the low end is.”
One potential high-end comparable discussed often by the media is Aleksander Barkov, the Florida Panthers’ centre who got a sixyear, $36.4-million deal a year ago.
Benning said the sides negotiated both a two-year bridge deal and a six-year option. Benning said negotiations heated up in the past two weeks and it seems the sides flipped after reaching an agreement on the number for a possible bridge contract.
“We went down both paths the whole time,” Benning said.
There would have been significant logic in a two-year bridge. The Canucks right now are paying Horvat near the peak of what he is worth.
They’re doing it for six years, which buys them only two seasons where he would have qualified to be an unrestricted free agent.
After a two-year “prove-it” deal, the Canucks possibly could have got Horvat on a similar number for a six-year deal that would have then consumed four of his potential unrestricted free-agent years.
The Canucks held most of the contract power in this negotiation. Horvat is two years away from being arbitration eligible and was not a candidate to be signed to an offer sheet.
A week ago, it didn’t help optics for Vancouver when the Columbus Blue Jackets signed Alex Wennberg to a six-year, $29.4-million deal. He’s from the same draft class, plays the same position, has more points and better underlying numbers on the defensive side of things. Of course, Wennberg doesn’t have Horvat’s immeasurables and that was a factor here.
“The intangibles,” Benning said. “His character. I like to say he has a mature soul. He acts older. He acts beyond his 22 years. That’s just the type of person he is.
“He’s got better every year. He’s the type of kid you don’t mind spending the money on. You know nothing is going to change for him.”
But the money is going to change things. Players with cap hits like Horvat’s $5.5 million a year are expected to produce in the 60-65 point range.
Horvat hasn’t always been viewed as that type of player in Vancouver. Does this change things?
“I think he’s capable of that,” Benning said. “If he gets more power-play time; he hasn’t really had a lot of power-play time up to this point. But I see him as two-way player who is going to be able to match up against other teams’ top lines, be able to shut them down plus score.”
That’s a considerable task, but now that Horvat is making considerable money, the expectations will change dramatically.
“There doesn’t seem like there’s ever not been pressure on me,” Horvat said.
“You get traded for Cory Schneider. You haven’t even stepped foot in the NHL yet and everyone is expecting big things.
“There’s always been pressure on me to perform. I’m ready to handle it.”