Canucks Army GDT #12 – Canucks @ Avalanche

The Canucks are in Colorado tonight to take on the Avalanche, who dropped an embarrassing 7 goals on Vancouver the last time the Canucks were in town. Vancouver will be looking to avenge that awful defeat tonight at 6:00 PM PST, and they’ll do it with a shiny new face in the lineup. Yes, Bo Horvat will finally make his NHL debut, but will he be a difference maker?

Read past the jump for a preview of tonight’s game.

Puck Drop: 6:00 PM PST

TV: Sportsnet Pacific

Radio: TSN 1040

The big story today is obviously the NHL debut of Bo Horvat, who will skate between Derek Dorsett and Jannik Hansen on the 4th line. It’s a fine position to put the young centre in, as he likely won’t be a top-6 guy for 3-4 years anyways (unless his development goes way faster than the average player), and Dorsett and Hansen are, on paper at least, two of the better 4th line wingers in the league. 

Short of a serious injury like what happened to Gilbert Brule, there is basically nothing that Horvat can do tonight that will have any material impact on how we should view Horvat as a prospect. If he’s good, that’s fantastic, but it means nothing. If he’s Luca Sbisa the last time the Canucks and Avs played, that’s disappointing, but it also means nothing. Although I’m sure we’ll be assessing his play each and every shift he takes, we should hold off on seriously assessing Horvat until he’s given his 9-game trial. I mean, we won’t. But we should.

In other news, Kevin Bieksa will draw into the lineup tonight despite taking a puck to the eye on Sunday. He’ll be paired with Ryan Stanton, who draws in the lineup for Yannick Weber, meaning that Luca Sbisa will move into the top-4 with Dan Hamhuis.

You can’t deny that Sbisa has looked awful at times this year with all the giveaways and blown coverages and whatnot, and he reached his pinnacle of suck the last time these two teams met. But, Sbisa also has two goals and an assist at 5-on-5, and has essentially been a possession-neutral player despite slightly defensively-skewed deployments. In short, he’s been an average NHL defenseman playing in a role where most guys are notably below average. To put it another way, he’s been good relative to his peers. 

As for the Avalanche, they’re still terrible. Only the Buffalo Sabres have a lower score adjusted fenwick, and the Buffalo Sabres may be among the worst teams we’ve ever seen. Still, Semyon Varlamov has picked up where he left off last season and given the Avs some fantastic goaltending, which is basically the only thing keeping them out of the Connor McDavid Sweepstakes. And even then, they’re dead last in the Central division.

But this is basically the same Avs team that hung 48 shots and 7 goals on the Canucks in their last meeting, and Nathan MacKinnon has caught fire since then too. However, Vancouver isn’t playing the second half of a road back-to-back this time, so tonight’s game should be quite a bit different than the last time these teams played one another. You can never expect a win in hockey, but I expect that Vancouver should outplay their hosts at the very least.