Welcome back to WDYTT, the only hockey column on the internet that still runs no matter how hard it’s raining.

Speaking of things that piss off Vancouver people, let’s talk about Bo Horvat. Because, make no mistake, Canuck fan reading this…Horvat’s been talking about you. No, maybe not you, specifically, but the collective you.

We’re sure you’ve heard it several times over by now. But just to twist the dagger one more time before we elicit emotional responses from you, let’s set the scene:

Horvat had just skated off the ice after a home ice victory against the Philadelphia Flyers, one that put his New York Islanders one step closer to the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Horvat was asked how the atmosphere of the building, and the prospect of bringing the playoffs there, felt in that moment. It’s worth noting, he was confusingly asked how the feeling “ranked” for him, but he was not specifically asked to provide a basis of comparison. But compare he did.

“It’s been unbelievable,” Horvat told an entire arena of cheering Long Islanders over the PA system, “A lot better than Vancouver, I’ll tell you that for free.”

(“For free” in this instance translates to “for $33 million,” but that’s besides the point.)

Shots. Fired.

The immediate reaction was mixed, and probably leaning toward indignant. Some folks were downright infuriated, however, enough so that Horvat chose to walk back his comments shortly thereafter.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect to the fans of Vancouver or my teammates or the city of Vancouver at all. It wasn’t directed at them,” Horvat ‘clarified,’ “The fans were all excited and I was excited to be in a playoff push. It was just one of those things where my emotions got the best of me. I was just happy to be there. It might have come out the wrong way to a lot of people, so I apologize for that.”

(There’s been no word as of yet as to what fee Horvat might have charged for the apology.)

Look, nobody’s taking that walkback at face value. But there are still a wide range of emotions at play regarding Horvat’s comments amongst the Vancouver fanbase, and that’s probably to be expected.

Whatever one’s reaction, it’s kind of hard to fault them.

And we especially don’t fault reactions here at WDYTT. We ask you for them!

This week, we’re asking you:

Let it be known in the comment section.

 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of replies, though we appreciate the ones we did get. In retrospect, we should probably stick to one question at a time. To make up for it, we asked a few of the CanucksArmy staff to chime in, too.

(We’re guessing we won’t have that same problem this week!)

MVP: umm.. Pettersson?

Top Defender: Well, that’s a no brainer: It’s Hughes

Most Exciting Player. Pettersson again, with Kuzmenko a close second.

Unsung Hero: Joshua, hands down.

OEL: MVP by his absence.

The Ryan Kesler Award for Most Overrated Player: JT Miller.

The Jeff Brown Award for Goaltender Outreach: JT Miller.

The Kyle Wellwood Award for BackChecking: ladies and gentleman, JT Miller.

I hope J. Rutherford and CanucksArmy say ‘no awards this year!’
Expectations were playoffs.

Elias Pettersson for MVP. He’s been otherworldly this season and deserves every bit of praise he’s received.

JT Miller for Most Exciting. This is a bit of a devil’s advocate pick, but Miller’s end to end rushes and ability to single-handedly turn a game — in either direction it feels at times — makes him my sleeper pick for the Canucks’ most exciting player.

Unsung Hero is Dakota Joshua. Nobody really knew what to expect from Joshua heading into this season, and it’s safe to say he blew any expectations out of the water with his career year.

Best Defenceman, Tyler Myers.

We’ll get the two boring ones out of the way early on.

The Top Defender goes to Quinn Hughes, and no one else is even in the same stratosphere. Ethan Bear is probably next up on the list, and he’s so far behind Hughes that he isn’t even worth mentioning here (with all due respect). If this ballot worked like the actual Norris Trophy voting, Hughes would receive every single first-place vote. Except for Quadrelli’s, maybe.

To keep this interesting, we’ll go ahead and boldly predict that Hughes receives at least one first-place vote for the actual Norris this year, too.

The MVP is also fairly boring, because it’s obviously the newly-minted 100-point Elias Pettersson (E100s Pointtersson?). But he’s at least got some competition in the form of the aforementioned Hughes. In fact, there’s an argument to be made for Hughes on the basis of ice-time and impact at both ends, but that doesn’t really change the fact that one player and one player only drove the Canucks on a consistent basis this year: Pettersson.

The Most Exciting Player could be either of those two, or the electric Andrei Kuzmenko, who also has the ‘shiny new toy’ thing working in his favour. But we’re also going to hand it to JT Miller, who tends toward more outwardly exciting plays on the ice and is always ready with an excitingly spicy remark off the ice, too. Miller also seemed to start (and finish) more scrums and fracases than usual this season, and we love scrums and fracases. Miller thrives as a center, and as the center of attention.

Finally, yes, Dakota Joshua is a more-than-worthy winner of the Unsung Hero award. But that’s the funny thing about being underrated…as soon as someone points it out, you’re suddenly not all that underrated anymore. So, we’re going to shoutout someone who was so unsung, he didn’t even draw the attention of Unsung Hero award voters, and that’s Sheldon Dries.

Nobody gave Dries much of a chance of cracking the Canucks this year, and yet he set career highs in games (62), goals (11), assists (6), and points (17). He won more faceoffs than he lost, he meshed with a wide variety of wingers, and he even showed a surprising ability to chuck the knuckles. Unsung he may be, but we hope at least someone was paying attention to Dries this year, because he really seems to have established himself as someone who belongs in the NHL.