Canucks: What to expect from Bo Horvat in the playoffs

Considering the hurdles he faced this season, first-year captain Bo Horvat was tremendous for the Vancouver Canucks. Expect no less from him in the playoffs.

Just like the Vancouver Canucks, for Bo Horvat, a presence in the Stanley Cup Playoffs has been a long time coming. The last time Vancouver made it to the dance, Henrik Sedin was the captain, his twin brother Daniel was the assistant, and Horvat was nothing more than a first-year rookie trying to make something of himself in the National Hockey League.

Five years removed from the team’s last appearance in a playoff game and a lot has changed for the No. 53 and the Canucks. Since then, Horvat has been drug through the mud of rebuild, fuelling his fire only to return as the captain of the Canucks and put this organization on the map with a Stanley Cup championship. He’s been through the highs and lows with this group as a rebuilding club, and now at the head of it all, he’s ready to lead his team into the next chapter.

Playoff experience

Horvat has little playoff experience on his resume, but the six games he played in his rookie year were some of the biggest games of his career. As the fourth line center of the Canucks that season, Horvat played some big minutes with Derek Dorsett in a defensive matchup role against the rivaled Calgary Flames.

More from Editorials

• Which team won the Bo Horvat trade?
• What to expect from newcomers Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Räty
• Back to the future: How the skate uniforms became a regular Canucks’ feature night
• Canucks kick off 2023 with disappointing 6-2 loss to Islanders
• 2nd period penalty trouble sinks Canucks in 4-2 loss against Winnipeg

The offense he dished out was a bonus for the Canucks that year, and they needed all the help they could get. Averaging 12:40 of ice-time under Willie Desjardins’ four-line coaching style, Horvat surprised many and wound up in a five-way tie for the team lead in playoff points.

Horvat’s four-point effort (1 goal, 3 assists) in six games wasn’t enough to get the Canucks past the first round, but Horvat was better than he was expected to be and he got some experience as a rookie. You can’t ask for much more than that, but unfortunately for Horvat, he hasn’t had the chance to build on his playoff resume since then.

It would have been nice to see what Horvat could have done during his rookie year if the Canucks had gone further in the playoffs, but he didn’t have a good enough team around him to get the job done. It may have been too long between playoff appearances, but at least now he’ll be supported with a team built to survive the first round.

What to expect

Horvat’s journey has brought him a long way since 2015. No longer a fourth-line player, Horvat is now the captain of Vancouver, and with that, a lot is expected of him ahead of the 2020 Playoffs.

Give a hockey player a taste of the post-season and he’ll never be the same again. For Horvat, that taste has long faded, but the desire to get his fill remains the same. And good for him, once the NHL returns from this COVID-19 hiatus, Horvat will once again have his taste of playoff puck.

Given his and the team’s five-year absence from the NHL post-season, expect Horvat to come out guns blazing, carving his own path of playoff destruction in an effort to show what this team means to him while the captaincy is under his name. After all, he’s been through the ups and downs, and it should be him who puts a stamp on this team as a playoff contender.

He’s consistently been putting up bigger numbers each year with Vancouver. If it wasn’t for the regular-season being cut short, Horvat would have likely enjoyed another career year, and you can expect the same improvement from him once the puck drops again for playoffs.

This time around, Horvat is not alone and the top-nine is loaded with scoring talent that can help Horvat boost his numbers. Being the only team in the league with seven players having paced for 20+ goals this season, Benning has supplied Horvat with plenty of support to be an impact player and a terrific two-way second-line center. You can’t forget about his net-front presence on the power play… a team-leading 12 goals.

His ability to be effective on both sides of the puck will be vital for the Canucks playoff success.