Vancouver Canucks

Bo Horvat a rare success story among Vancouver Canucks first-rounders
August 8, 2017, 2:49 PM ET [469 Comments]
Carol Schram
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This tweet caught my eye yesterday.




This is a rare sight—a Canucks' first-rounder who moves up the rankings in his draft class based on his points, compared to his draft position.

It doesn't necessarily mean that Bo should have been drafted higher—two of the players he has passed are defencemen, Rasmus Ristolainen and Darnell Nurse, and they're both outstanding. The other is Jonathan Drouin, who has shown plenty of promise but hasn't played as many NHL games as most of the other top 2013 draftees.

An even better indication of how well Horvat has exceeded expectations comes from a look at the Central Scouting rankings for his draft, which you can see by clicking here. He was the third-highest centre ranked among North American skaters behind Nathan MacKinnon and Sean Monahan—fair enough. But he went into the draft ranked at 15 among North American skaters.

Here's how some of the North American forwards that were ranked higher than Horvat have produced since draft day:

6. Hunter Shinkaruk - chosen 24th by Vancouver - 15 NHL games played - 2-2-4
7. Valentin Zykov - chosen 37th by L.A. - traded to Carolina in 2016 as part of the Kris Versteeg deal - 1 NHL game played - 1-0-1
8. Frederik Gauthier - chosen 21st by Toronto - 28 NHL games played - 2-2-4
10. Anthony Mantha - chosen 20th by Detroit - 70 NHL games played - 19-20-39
13. Zach Nastasiuk - chosen 48th by Detroit - no NHL games - spent most of his time in ECHL last season

Mike Gillis and his scouting team made a bold move when they sold high on Cory Schneider, acquiring that ninth-overall pick to go off the board a bit and choose Horvat. It worked out—but just for fun, let's imagine a sliding-doors scenario where Roberto Luongo didn't give his "My contract sucks" press conference at the 2013 trade deadline because Gillis actually had been able to move him.

Then, Schneider would have stayed with the Canucks and most likely re-upped on a long-term contract like the one he signed in New Jersey.

The Canucks were 20-11-6 through 37 games after the April 3 trade deadline of the lockout-shortened 2013 season. They finished the year, with both Schneider and Luongo, with a 26-15-7 record—winning their fifth straight Northwest Division title before re-alignment kicked in the following year and ending the year eighth overall with 59 points.

Then, they were swept by the San Jose Sharks. Luongo took the first two losses before Schneider stepped in for Game 3 and took the 4-3 overtime loss in Game 4. Alain Vigneault was fired, Schneider was traded, and the decline began in earnest.

If Schneider had stayed, would he has been able to handle Hurricane Torts better than Luongo could? Would he have had a chance to appear in more playoff games? I feel bad for Schneider that he's now 31 years old and hasn't had a sniff at the postseason during his entire time in New Jersey. Schneider suffered a dip in performance last season that could be a sign that his best years are now behind him. Are those six playoff starts with the Canucks going to be the extent of his postseason legacy?

Horvat's not the only first-rounder giving Canucks fans hope these days. This year's pick, Elias Pettersson, looks promising, and we could start getting a sense of Olli Juolevi's future impact as early as training camp this fall.

Vancouver's first-rounder from 2015, Brock Boeser, was one of four players to get the large photo treatment in the article on this year's wide-open Calder Trophy race in new yearbook from The Hockey News. The other featured players are Clayton Keller of the Arizona Coyotes, Charlie McAvoy of the Boston Bruins and Tyson Jost of the Colorado Avalanche—all NCAA prospects like Boeser, interestingly enough.

Going back to 2014, 24th-overall pick Jared McCann was flipped in the package that brought Erik Gudbranson to Vancouver, and the jury's still out on sixth-overall pick Jake Virtanen. His 14 points in 65 NHL games rank him 21st in points among his draft class—a list that's currently led by Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak and Nikolaj Ehlers. Virtanen was ranked sixth among North American skaters in his draft year. The five players ranked above him were the five players taken before him in a very by-the-book draft—including Michael Dal Colle at No. 5, who has yet to play his first NHL game with the New York Islanders.

Jake was in town this past weekend, marching with the Canucks contingent in the Pride Parade.