Canucks: Analyzing Bo Horvat’s game at the midway point of the season

We are at the midway point of the season for the Vancouver Canucks with them playing 31 out of 56 games. The playoffs look like they aren’t happening this year with the Canucks sitting sixth in the North Division with a 13-16-2 record at the time of this writing.

One of the few bright spots of this team has been Bo Horvat. The Canucks captain is tied for fourth in team scoring with Elias Pettersson (who unfortunately is out for at least a week with an upper-body injury) with 12 goals and nine assists for 21 points.

Horvat has been a big part of the power play and the offence this season. So let’s take a look at how he has been so far.

Horvat clips

Horvat loves to be in front of the net or the bumper area, especially on the power play. In fact, he leads the Canucks with six power play goals. That includes one of the ugliest goals you will ever see against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night, which kind of looked like a rugby scrum.

Horvat really has a knack for tipping in shots from the point. Here he deflects a shot from Tyler Myers.

Probably the biggest issue this season has been Horvat’s play in his own end as he has made some costly turnovers and giving opponents easy scoring chances. Here, he doesn’t really do a good job of checking Nick Suzuki.

It hasn’t been all bad, however. In this clip, for example, Myers loses the puck battle and luckily for Brock Boeser and Olli Juolevi, Tyler Toffoli couldn’t settle the puck down before Horvat bails them out by clearing it away.

One thing that is impressive about Horvat this year is his ability to rush for the puck when it is being cleared from the defensive zone as put on display here.

Horvat’s analytics

When it comes to analytics, Horvat is an interesting player. Defensively, the stats aren’t in his favour either as he (along with J.T. Miller) is one of the worst forwards in the league when it comes to five on five defence Wins Above Replacement (if you want, you can read more about WAR here).

Horvat has the fifth-highest shots against on the Canucks with 248, fifth highest in expected goals against with 19.52 and sixth in high danger goals against with 16.

On the offensive front, Horvat’s numbers are more favourable.  He is seventh in corsi at 48.86%, has a respectable expected goals for percentage with 46.60% and a high danger corsi for percentage of 45.93%.

Conclusion

Horvat’s defensive game may not look great but it isn’t horrible and he is still good offensively, scoring goals, making plays and putting his skating on display. Canucks fans can count on the captain to lead and make the right play. After all, Bo knows hockey.

*Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.