Horvat knows how to win faceoffs
Having a hold of the puck is a big thing in hockey and winning faceoffs plays a big part in all of that. As a bottom of the barrel team in terms of possession numbers, the Canucks know that more than anybody else, and when it comes to Vancouver, Horvat is the King of the faceoff circle. He’s actually near the top of the charts for all NHL centers. Coming out the winner of the draw more times than not became a really vital part of the Canucks’ survival.
Playing under the legendary faceoff man himself Manny Malhotra, Horvat crafted the draw and finished the season with a 57.3% winning rate. He finished inside the top-10 across the entire league and helped the Canucks have one of the NHL’s best faceoff winning percentages.
According to Natural Stat Trick, Horvat took a whopping 1483 faceoffs this year and won 850 of them. To put things in perspective, that’s exactly double the number of wins as the second-highest Canuck J.T. Miller.
Jay Beagle, a man brought to the Canucks for his faceoff winning abilities finished with the team’s best overall win percentage, however Horvat more than doubled his number of draws altogether. In fact, when you combine all the faceoffs taken by Beagle, Adam Gaudette, and Brandon Sutter, it appears Horvat only trails their 3- person total by 30. Let that sink in for a minute. That’s a large number of faceoffs and a ton of responsibility. Good thing the captain prevailed.