3 Landing Spots for Bo Horvat After Rejecting Canucks’ Offer
Look away Vancouver Canucks fans, things are about to go from bad to worse.
It’s no secret that changes are coming for the Canucks. Core players, most notably Brock Boeser, have been rumored to be on the trade block for quite some time. It seems even more likely now that the players that fans have come to associate with Vancouver will soon be playing elsewhere.
A new blow was dealt to Canucks fans this week when captain Bo Horvat rejected a contract offer from the only NHL team he’s known.
Further to @DhaliwalSports’s report, told that the Canucks made Horvat’s camp the new contract offer a couple of weeks ago. With the offer rejected, Canucks focused on the trade market between now and March 3 https://t.co/7aWU39ucCD
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) December 12, 2022
Despite Horvat’s team-leading 20 goals and his 29 points that rank second among Canucks skaters, Vancouver is 12-13-3. Things have certainly gotten better throughout this season, but this is still an underachieving team, and it has been just that for years.
Where should the Canucks trade Bo Horvat?
It’s disappointing that things never materialized for Vancouver. A trip to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to face the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020 gave fans a reason to think that a new version of the Canucks had arrived.
Unfortunately, that remains their only postseason appearance since losing to the Calgary Flames in the first round of the 2015 playoffs.
Now, the attention shifts from how the Canucks can become contenders to how they’ll go about trading one of the faces of the franchise. Fans will eagerly watch to learn Horvat’s next NHL home and how his current team can obtain enough assets to positively shape its future.
There won’t be any shortage when it comes to interest in Horvat, a player who has skated in 600 NHL contests. Over the course of nine seasons, all with the Canucks, he has tallied 190 goals and 205 assists for 395 points.
His career-high offensively came during the 2018-2019 campaign when he notched 27 goals and 34 assists (61 points) in 82 games.
With all of that said, here are three teams that could be potential landing spots for the 27-year-old Canucks captain.
Colorado Avalanche
The defending Stanley Cup champions are hurting badly. Their list of injuries is too long to lay out here, but Nathan MacKinnon is among those not in the lineup, and that’s all you need to know.
Entering play on Tuesday, the Avs are 14-10-2. If the season ended today, last year’s champions would be watching the postseason from home. Therefore, it’s important that Colorado makes a move to help them fill in the gaps while key players are out of the lineup.
The Avalanche rank 20th in goals per game so far this season, so Horvat’s 20 goals would undoubtedly come in handy.
He is also among the NHL’s best in faceoff win percentage, a category in which Colorado has struggled mightily in the first two months of this season. The Avalanche win only 44.3% of their faceoffs, which is 31st in the league. Horvat wins 57.67% of his draws.
Bo Horvat is a productive player, and as he is in the last year of his current contract, he’s the perfect type of short-term solution that the Avalanche need. His $5.5 million cap hit does complicate things for Colorado, but the Avs currently have $5.265 in cap space thanks to injuries.
It may not be the easiest trade to pull off, but Horvat needs a winning team, and the Avalanche need some established NHL players in their lineup.
Minnesota Wild
Minnesota is another team that could use Horvat’s faceoff services, as it wins only 48.2% of its draws (tied for 23 in the league).
Where he could potentially be a better fit for the Wild is in terms of depth. One could argue that when healthy, the Avalanche don’t have as much of a need for Horvat. That is not the case for the Wild.
Minnesota has Joel Eriksson Ek at center, who is third on the team in points and locked up long-term. From there, the center depth chart is headlined by Frederick Gaudreau (10 points in 28 games) and Marco Rossi (one point in 16 games).
I don’t want to suggest that those players can’t be competent, especially Rossi, who was the ninth overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, but Minnesota wants to win now, and adding Bo Horvat would make me feel like they’re significantly closer to doing that than they are now.
Like the Avalanche, the Wild benefit financially from players on the long-term injured reserve (LTIR), but even if you count the money tied up in injured players, Minnesota is more than halfway to covering Horvat’s sap hit.
They have $3.299 million available, with current cap space equaling just over $5 million.
Again, the Canucks captain could be a rental, but Minnesota is a franchise in a position to rent someone to help them win in 2023. At 15-11-2, they’re anything but locked into the playoffs, and adding a veteran center could go a long way.
Carolina Hurricanes
Finally, the Carolina Hurricanes could make sense as a trade partner with the Canucks when it comes to Bo Horvat.
They are similar to the Wild in the sense that they have depth questions at the center position. In a perfect world, Sebastian Aho and Jesperi Kotkaniemi would fill the top two center roles, but Aho has missed a few games recently, and Kotkaniemi has struggled to the tune of six points in 27 games.
The Canes have decent centers further down the lineup, like Paul Stastny, but they need to find a way to fill a top-two center position. Enter Bo Horvat.
His 20 goals would be five more than any current Hurricanes skater, and his 29 points would lead the team. He would be a huge boost to a club that scores fewer than three goals per game (2.9) and ranks 27th in goals per contest.
As is the case with both of the previously mentioned teams, Carolina is prepared to win this season. They still have help coming offensively in the form of Max Pacioretty, but he doesn’t play center.
It’s never too early to start making moves for the Cup if a team is a true contender. The Hurricanes are absolutely contenders, and with $4.6 million in cap space ($6.839 million in current cap space after injuries), they’d have the easiest time, of the teams listed, getting a deal done.
The Hurricanes come into Tuesday with a 15-6-6 record, chasing the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils in the Metropolitan Division.
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At this point, it seems to be more about when, not if, a trade gets done for the Canucks and their captain.