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Bo Horvat is the Canucks best center.

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Got the Babych

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6 minutes ago, MtnHockeyGuy said:

Trading Bo away will set this franchise back SO much further than people realize. 

1475 Face-off taken with a 57% FOW. 4th most Face-offs in the entire league. Losing this, I don't even know how the team can make this up. 

 

Bo is elite. And coming off his 30 goal campaign I am REALLY excited to see how he does going into next year. I don't care if he doesn't fight or hit, a good leader doesn't have to and everything JR has eluded to states his Captaincy is very beneficial to the team.

 

Horvat should be looking at a very similar contract to Landeskog in my opinion. 7m x 8. Which is extremely doable with the teams cap structure.

 

I'd love Bo to be here forever. The team needs him. It's going to be a great year. 

He is pretty darn good. Don't know if he is elite though.

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2 minutes ago, Chris12345 said:

He is pretty darn good. Don't know if he is elite though.

I think there are more ways to being elite than scoring goals and racking up points. So when I say elite, I mean he is elite at what he is - one of the best Centers and face-off guys in the league. 

 

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3 minutes ago, MtnHockeyGuy said:

I think there are more ways to being elite than scoring goals and racking up points. So when I say elite, I mean he is elite at what he is - one of the best Centers and face-off guys in the league. 

 

Sure, top 3 at face offs if not 1.

 

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38 minutes ago, Got the Babych said:

Not necessarily saying Bo is our best player, but I posit that he is, quietly, our best center: 

 

1. Bo is the only one that has, uh, consistently played center in the NHL. JT has mostly not, hopefully Petey eventually will.
2. Bo has been relegated to "shutdown centre" duties because  he is the only one that CAN play that role. Bo is the only one that plays as a true 200 ft center, Petey likely will eventually, JT will not. Doesn't mean Bo is not a top line center. When given the chance (as JT was) he will dominate on a top line.
3. Bo scored the same amount of goals last year, while being utilized in a defensive role with offensively inferior partners. JT and Petey generally play with our most prolific goal scorers (including each other). JT crushed the assists and deserves credit for beautiful playmaking last year, but it should be obvious that it's hard to rack up assists when consistently paired with non-goal scorers.
4. JT and Petey often play (and are at their best) on the same line. How does that work for centers? Sometimes Petey will be "playing center" while JT takes the faceoffs. So, for a fair comparison to Bo, JT and Petey would have to make a baby together, and hope that he becomes a pure center of Bo's caliber that can do it all.
5. Consistency. Comparing by age (first year in the league, second, etc), Bo has consistently outperformed JT in the NHL, while playing for a horrible team. Petey blows them away for early years.
6. Handsome-ness. This one is tough. Petey could be seen as pretty-but not handsome-while Bo and JT are both dreamy in a rugged, farmboy kind of way. I give JT a slight edge here.

I wouldn't say best, but I would say most versatile.  Can play in all situations, fairly durable, can play the game any style.

 

If Bo didn't go on his usual 20-game disappearing act every season, he would be the best centerman on the Canucks roster and could be spoken in the same category as Patrice Bergeron and Ryan O'Reilly and Claude Giroux.

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31 minutes ago, MtnHockeyGuy said:

Trading Bo away will set this franchise back SO much further than people realize. 

1475 Face-off taken with a 57% FOW. 4th most Face-offs in the entire league. Losing this, I don't even know how the team can make this up. 

 

Bo is elite. And coming off his 30 goal campaign I am REALLY excited to see how he does going into next year. I don't care if he doesn't fight or hit, a good leader doesn't have to and everything JR has eluded to states his Captaincy is very beneficial to the team.

 

Horvat should be looking at a very similar contract to Landeskog in my opinion. 7m x 8. Which is extremely doable with the teams cap structure.

 

I'd love Bo to be here forever. The team needs him. It's going to be a great year. 

For sure. That would be a great deal for us.

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24 minutes ago, MtnHockeyGuy said:

I think there are more ways to being elite than scoring goals and racking up points. So when I say elite, I mean he is elite at what he is - one of the best Centers and face-off guys in the league. 

 

Fox sports has Horvat at 6th..

 

A4ED66D3-D388-430E-A9AA-F98ABC962100.thumb.png.2bc71f9ac9282a9bfe47490c775f08bc.png

 

 

And Miller,  not to far off..

 

5F60BF51-8EEA-4EBC-9773-7180902E4CFD.thumb.png.97c544864adcc59a7806c74c3264267f.png

 

 

A lot of times it’s who your up against..

 

but I think we have a good tandem..

 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, MtnHockeyGuy said:

Trading Bo away will set this franchise back SO much further than people realize. 

1475 Face-off taken with a 57% FOW. 4th most Face-offs in the entire league. Losing this, I don't even know how the team can make this up. 

 

Bo is elite. And coming off his 30 goal campaign I am REALLY excited to see how he does going into next year. I don't care if he doesn't fight or hit, a good leader doesn't have to and everything JR has eluded to states his Captaincy is very beneficial to the team.

 

Horvat should be looking at a very similar contract to Landeskog in my opinion. 7m x 8. Which is extremely doable with the teams cap structure.

 

I'd love Bo to be here forever. The team needs him. It's going to be a great year. 

I like Bo,  but I’d rather have Landeskog at that price.


 

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8 minutes ago, SilentSam said:

Fox sports has Horvat at 6th..

 

A4ED66D3-D388-430E-A9AA-F98ABC962100.thumb.png.2bc71f9ac9282a9bfe47490c775f08bc.png

 

 

And Miller,  not to far off..

 

5F60BF51-8EEA-4EBC-9773-7180902E4CFD.thumb.png.97c544864adcc59a7806c74c3264267f.png

 

 

A lot of times it’s who your up against..

 

but I think we have a good tandem..

 

 

 

Top 10 is amongst some pretty elite company! And yes great to have 2 faceoff machines, this is often underappreciated.

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12 minutes ago, Got the Babych said:

I think Bo is more than faceoffs, but he is the active FO% leader, with a familiar name at #3!

JT also here at a respectable #21

image.thumb.png.eb9ec6e0f5f8f342e836af45f41b24e4.png

23rd Captain Underpants

25th Johnny Pajamas

No wonder the Laffs can't get past the 1st round.

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1 hour ago, Got the Babych said:

Not necessarily saying Bo is our best player, but I posit that he is, quietly, our best center: 

 

1. Bo is the only one that has, uh, consistently played center in the NHL. JT has mostly not, hopefully Petey eventually will.
2. Bo has been relegated to "shutdown centre" duties because  he is the only one that CAN play that role. Bo is the only one that plays as a true 200 ft center, Petey likely will eventually, JT will not. Doesn't mean Bo is not a top line center. When given the chance (as JT was) he will dominate on a top line.
3. Bo scored the same amount of goals last year, while being utilized in a defensive role with offensively inferior partners. JT and Petey generally play with our most prolific goal scorers (including each other). JT crushed the assists and deserves credit for beautiful playmaking last year, but it should be obvious that it's hard to rack up assists when consistently paired with non-goal scorers.
4. JT and Petey often play (and are at their best) on the same line. How does that work for centers? Sometimes Petey will be "playing center" while JT takes the faceoffs. So, for a fair comparison to Bo, JT and Petey would have to make a baby together, and hope that he becomes a pure center of Bo's caliber that can do it all.
5. Consistency. Comparing by age (first year in the league, second, etc), Bo has consistently outperformed JT in the NHL, while playing for a horrible team. Petey blows them away for early years.
6. Handsome-ness. This one is tough. Petey could be seen as pretty-but not handsome-while Bo and JT are both dreamy in a rugged, farmboy kind of way. I give JT a slight edge here.

I gave you a 'Cheers' but I was also laughing at #4 and #6.

To be fair, make a baby!

Dreamy rugged farmboy...

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I agree OP that Bo has the strongest 200-ft game coupled with scoring ability (as shown by his 30-goal season).  That being said, it's still tough to put him ahead of either JT or Pete and hold the fact that 9 and 40 played together against them (to rationalize why they're successful).  Curious how someone quantifies a Selke caliber #2 as better than a #1 C and their running mate (e.g. Ducks Kesler vs. Ducks Getzlaf and Perry) and I'm genuinely asking this since their duties and skillsets are so different (the #1 line duo work off each other whereas Bo/ Kesler can go beast-mode on their own, so to make things easier I just view them as 1st line, 2nd line but I could see an argument being made).  

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26 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

Here are my two cents:

 

1. Bo is the only one that has, uh, consistently played center in the NHL. JT has mostly not, hopefully Petey eventually will.

 

All this goes to show is that he's most used as a centre, not that he's the best.


2. Bo has been relegated to "shutdown centre" duties because  he is the only one that CAN play that role. Bo is the only one that plays as a true 200 ft center, Petey likely will eventually, JT will not. Doesn't mean Bo is not a top line center. When given the chance (as JT was) he will dominate on a top line.

 

I would tend to disagree with this notion. Miller played more PK time than any other forward on the team and his PP GA/60 was better than Horvat's. Although Pettersson didn't start out playing on the PK, he did by the end of the year and he had very impressive results, with an insanely low PP GA/60 of 3.63 (for reference, Miller's is 8.61 and Horvat's is 10.89). 

 

The one place you have some degree of a case is that Horvat appears to be used more defensively in 5v5 situations than either Pettersson or Miller, with a 43.4% OZ%. Still, overall, Miller blocks more shots than Horvat and both Miller and Pettersson have more takeaways than Horvat. Horvat is a face-off legend at this point, though Miller also holds very impressive faceoff numbers. Pettersson has a lot of space to grow there.


3. Bo scored the same amount of goals last year, while being utilized in a defensive role with offensively inferior partners. JT and Petey generally play with our most prolific goal scorers (including each other). JT crushed the assists and deserves credit for beautiful playmaking last year, but it should be obvious that it's hard to rack up assists when consistently paired with non-goal scorers.

 

I would contend that Horvat was our best goal-scorer last year, on pace for 36 goals. His goals-per-game was the highest of any Canuck (min 30 games/season) since Brock Boeser in his rookie year. I would agree with you on the goal aspect, but I do think assists are still a valuable stat and he didn't get as many of those. There is a chance that, as you mentioned, line mates played a role here.


4. JT and Petey often play (and are at their best) on the same line. How does that work for centers? Sometimes Petey will be "playing center" while JT takes the faceoffs. So, for a fair comparison to Bo, JT and Petey would have to make a baby together, and hope that he becomes a pure center of Bo's caliber that can do it all.

 

Don't fully understand this point, so I can't really comment.


5. Consistency. Comparing by age (first year in the league, second, etc), Bo has consistently outperformed JT in the NHL, while playing for a horrible team. Petey blows them away for early years.

 

While this is mostly true, it falls apart starting this year. Bo Horvat just played his 8th season this year and had 52 points in 72 games. In Miller's 8th season, he scored over a point-per-game in his first year as a Canuck with 72 points in 69 games, a level Horvat has never been very close to. Additionally, this completely ignores the expected future results of Horvat as he plays more years. Do we expect Horvat to break out like Miller and begin scoring a point-per-game and even above? I think it is probably unrealistic to expect as much and thus, this point somewhat falls short due the current differences in length of their careers.

 

 

6. Handsome-ness. This one is tough. Petey could be seen as pretty-but not handsome-while Bo and JT are both dreamy in a rugged, farmboy kind of way. I give JT a slight edge here.

 

No argument here. :P

Valid arguments. I didn't know JT logged the most forward PK time. But, is that playing center? I'm not saying Bo is our best player. You're right Bo will have to take a big step to match JT's trajectory now.

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