Hours after the Monday afternoon trade that sent Vancouver Canucks captain Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders, general manager Patrik Allvin met with the media to field questions about the day’s events.
Allvin began by thanking Horvat on behalf of the organization for his time in Vancouver, and for his services as the team’s captain for the past four seasons.
“On behalf of the Vancouver Canucks organization, I wanted to thank Bo Horvat for his nine years here in Vancouver. Being a great captain, and leader, good hockey player, and a good person, what he’s done on and off the ice here. Definitely want to thank Bo for that.”
Allvin talked about the return of the trade, which saw the Canucks acquire a 2023 first round pick, Anthony Beauvillier, and prospect Aatu Raty from the Islanders.
“You know what? You can look at it that we actually got three first rounders back here,” said Allvin. “I think it was important for us to get a first round pick back. We’ve got a young prospect in Aatu Raty, and again we’re getting a 25-year-old young player in Anthony Beauvillier back here that has been playing pretty consistent for the New York Islanders over the last couple of years. I’ve seen him a lot in my previous organization in the playoffs. I like the details he plays with, his tenacity, his puck hunting. I think he will fit in well here in our top six group on the left side.”
Allvin made it clear that the Canucks are big believers in both of the players his club got back in this trade, and added that they hope Raty can continue to develop under the close watch of the Canucks’ development staff out in Abbotsford.
“Our scouting staff really liked him in his draft year,” said Allvin of Raty. “He was a highly rated player, struggled a little bit in the end of this draft year, which I think is why he slid out of the first round. But he had such a strong draft year plus one back in Finland there having a point per game, I believe in the top league there and then came back and played really strong at the World Juniors. We like the size, 6’2 centre, competitive, good two way game, a lot of details. For a young player to step in right away from Europe and play the way he has done in New York here for 12 games is pretty impressive.”
Finally, Allvin was asked about the void in the leadership group and whether or not the team would name another captain. While he didn’t know exactly when they would name a new captain, Allvin made it clear that he expects the Canucks’ two young stars to step up in Horvat’s absence.
“It’s hard to move, move, move your captain away. It was definitely a hard conversation that I had with Jim and here Rick Tocchet,” said Allvin. “As I said, there is a lot of young players here and particularly Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have shown that they’re capable of being leaders of this team. So we’ll sit down as a staff and talk about it here over the next couple of days… Not a rush, but I do think there will be a decision here either way with what we come up with.
“But I do think Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have shown they’re capable of taking over this team.”
