I think it's BS people claiming he wasn't good at defence before. His positioning and defensive stickwork has been pretty great since his first year in the league. I even commented on it way back in prospect camp. Yes, he could have covered guys a little harder at times, and there was a definite adjustment period when he was developing his offensive game where he was caught behind the play at times.
But this isn't some sudden morph into a defensively responsible player. He's always been at least above average at it.
What kills me is that people will focus on Horvat somehow being "bad" defensively but meanwhile since he's been on the team half of the rest of the forwards are aimless wanderers in their own end.
Well yes and no. It's not that he was bad defensively, it's that he didn't play well defensively and there is a difference. In his rookie year he was very responsible defensively, but since then he has cheated quite a bit defensively to put up points. He wasn't the worst, but he wasn't good either.
The Sedins earlier in their careers were fine defensively, but they started cheating to put up more points, and it was worth it because they gained a bigger edge on offense than they gave up on defense. I thought for the last year or two they should have been PP specialists who played a more well rounded/defensive game. They're high IQ players who are good along the boards, absolutely no reason they couldn't be a solid two way 2nd/3rd line if they wanted to. Unfortunately they kept cheating and just didn't have the edge anymore to make it worthwhile.
Bo is clearly good enough to play a two-way game, and it's both interesting and encouraging that as a helicopter line while playing solid defense he's putting up a better pace than last season, but he hasn't played responsibly defensively for the past few seasons. I hope when Sutter returns he realizes he's good enough to play this two way game, or that he absolutely explodes offensively if he decides to turn down defence.
I love Pettersson and that kid is gonna be a superstar, but Horvat, like every season before, has seemingly taken a major leap forward and is looking like an elite 2c or legit 1c. He's putting up Toews numbers without guys like Kane to play with. He is also doing so with tough deployment. He should 100% be in the running for the Selke IMO and I really hope if he's still trucking along at a 70pt pace after 40 games that the media takes notice. Instead of actual top 6 players he's playing with Schaller, Archibald, Eriksson, Leipsic and Virtanen. Absolute killer season so far.
