Vancouver Canucks Need to Use Bo Horvat in Offensive Situations
By Ben Dooley
The Vancouver Canucks are struggling to produce offense right now and using forward Bo Horvat in more offensive situations could solve that issue.
The Vancouver Canucks cannot score goals right now regardless of what line combination is on the ice. Everybody is struggling to score goals. However, the Canucks may be able to solve the issue by simply changing how they utilize their forwards.
Vancouver seems to have this idea that forward Bo Horvat is more likely to create offense when he starts in the defensive zone. They seem to think the only way he’s going to score goals is off the rush. With that in mind, let’s look at the zone starts for Horvat and Brandon Sutter.
Horvat has taken 152 faceoffs this year. Of those 152, only 41 have been in the offensive zone. That means that Horvat’s faceoffs are in the offensive zone just 27 percent of the time.
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Brandon Sutter is off to arguably the hottest start of his career. Through nine games, he has one goal and four assists. This isn’t necessarily because he’s discovered some offensive talent that he didn’t have before. Instead, it might have something to do with how the Canucks are choosing to deploy him.
This year, Sutter has taken 172 faceoffs, the most of any Canucks centre. Of those 172 faceoffs, 59 have come in the offensive zone. That means that 34 percent of the time, Sutter is starting in the offensive zone.
That may not seem like a huge difference, but if you look at their usage in the defensive zone, you can really see that the Canucks treat the two centres differently.
Sutter has taken 60 faceoffs in the defensive zone. That’s almost identical to his usage in the offensive zone. Horvat has taken a whopping 68 faceoffs in the defensive zone. That comes out to 45 percent of his faceoffs taking place in the defensive zone.
At this point in his career, the Canucks should not be limiting Horvat’s offensive capabilities like they are. They should be allowing the player to show what he can do. Instead, they seem to be telling him that this is the way he’s going to produce offense.
Most players will not succeed offensively with such a high defensive-zone start percentage. It takes a special type of player to be able to go from end to end off the rush. A player like Jannik Hansen is quite capable of doing that. Horvat has shown that he can do it at times, too.
We don’t yet know what Horvat’s ceiling is as an offensive centreman. It’s far too early in his career to be placing any sort of limitations on what he can or cannot do. With Sutter, you already know that he can play the shutdown role and that’s an area of the game that he really strives in.
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So, instead of limiting Horvat with an incredibly high number of defensive zone starts, the Canucks should give some more opportunities in the offensive zone. They should make it easier for him to succeed instead of placing him under pressure in the defensive zone. They might be surprised with what he can do.