The pressure was on Vancouver Canucks centre Bo Horvat to succeed, considering that former general manager Mike Gillis gave up a star goalie in Cory Schneider so he could draft the young centre.
Well, so far so good. Horvat has progressed more and more each season, and led the Canucks last season with 20 goals and 52 points. The 22-year-old has shown he’s up for being the No. 1 centre from here on out, so expectations are for Horvat to have an even bigger breakout season in 2017-18.
As Henrik and Daniel Sedin continue to decline in production, all signs point to Vancouver building around Horvat — at least until Olli Juolevi and Elias Pettersson are NHL ready.