BEST FLASHBACK

When this season is over, this may end up being the week people reference when explaining just how far Bo Horvat has come.

It’s not just the minutes, though only nine centres in the NHL are averaging more.

It’s not just the matchups, though he has four points and 13 shots in three games while he’s been busy shutting down Connor McDavid and battling Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov to a draw.

It’s not just the leadership, the faceoff wins, the 30-goal pace or the fact he really hasn’t had anyone to play with at all.

This week will also be remembered for a flashback provided by Kevin Bieksa when he revealed a story on Sportsnet 650 which needs to be immediately tattooed into any retelling of Horvat’s origins.

Bieksa cut right to Horvat’s heart and soul, sharing a story from his first training camp when he came dead last in a two-mile run behind even the goalie, Roberto Luongo.

It was one part indignity and three parts powerful lesson.

“I texted (Bieksa). I said ‘Thanks for all the nice comments, but did you have to bring up that two-mile run?'” Horvat said.

“Did he really have to remind me of it? It wasn’t my proudest moment.”

But it did make him better.

“I came back to London and I was like ‘Guys, I’m never going to make the NHL. This is so hard.’

“That was a massive wake-up. To come here and see Hank and Danny win everything like that. It was a ‘wow’ moment. I realized I had to work that much harder to be at the top.

“It definitely made me better.”

Flash forward five years later, and Horvat is showing signs he can be the centre he always believed was inside him.

He can play a complete game, and be the engine who is trusted to not only play in every situation but to carry his team, one that has been overachieving for a couple of weeks.

He is averaging nearly 21 minutes a game on the season and nearly 22 since Brandon Sutter was lost to an injury.

He isn’t just handling the minutes, he’s thriving with them.

In 25 games without Sutter in the lineup, he’s taken on his team’s biggest defensive responsibilities while scoring 10 goals and 14 assists in 25 games.

That is big boy hockey.

That is Bo Horvat.

And if you ask, he’ll tell you this player was always here.

“Honestly, in junior this is the type of situation where I was playing my best hockey,” Horvat said.

“I was getting all the minutes and all the matchups.

“I was the matchup guy and it was through that where I’d get all my points.

“Great defensive play was the staple of my game. That’s where I always seemed to get all of my points it’s felt like my entire life.

“In the McDavid game, I ended up with a goal and an assist and I was in a shutdown role.

“It’s funny how it’s worked out like it has.”

If by funny he means game-changing, sure.

Because right now, the Canucks have two centres who could potentially be No. 1s and they’re each on pace for more than 30 goals.

BEST PASS

This is pretty much impossible to defend if executed correctly.

HORVAT: “I didn’t have a lot of options on that side of the goal on earlier power plays so I switched things up and (Pettersson) made a hell of a pass.

“I was looking right at him. I was staring at him trying to talk to him telepathically.

“I was saying ‘I’m open. Can you hear me?'”

It’s Pettersson. Of course he can.

BEST REWATCH

Now watch that play again and check out what Goldy does in the slot to get that puck through.

@botchford @TheStanchion I can't be the only one who saw Goldy tap the blues stick out of the passing lane on Horvat's goal? Super heads up play on a pp and timed so perfectly with the pass #canucks — Jordan Jennings (@jennings4) December 21, 2018

BEST DEVELOPMENT

This is the best Jacob Markstrom has ever played. Full stop.

For the first time in his career, he’s won six straight starts

His save percentage in that run is .942.

There’s a better than nothing chance that Ian Clark is the best thing that’s ever happened to him since he established himself as an NHL goalie.

Although it runs counter to Project Cable Box, Green has done a very good job of picking his starts and ensuring he gets time every couple of weeks to work with Clark to drive home some the changes he’s implemented.

Marky should be pretty amped and excited but when he was asked about how it feels to win six straight he took a moment and then deadpanned:

“Good.”

That’s it.

Good.

BEST SAUCE

How did Leivo not get an assist for this glorious backhand sauce which set up Gaudette’s goal?

BEST SHOWER

Poor Jake Allen.

He has to backstop the Blues and he’s got to deal with this.

BEST WTF

Believe it or not, and you won’t, one year ago, the St. Louis Blues were the top team in their division. Oh, and in the Western Conference.

It seems inconceivable currently mostly because the deconstruction of that squad led by the guiding hand of Doug Armstrong is one of the more low-key, mindblowing stories in recent memory.

And one no one talks about, like ever.

But it happened.

What follows is not an artifact from 2013. This is from 2017 and it was December.

Books should be written about it.

Armstrong would go on to tank just two months later, trading Paul Stastny for picks.

He would go on to sign a series of overpaid free agents and make a highly questionable trade for Ryan O’Reilly which includes a first-round pick which is protected this year but not next.

That No. 1 team in the West has become a laughingstock around the league and just got demolished 11-2 in a two-game series with the Canucks.

I’d say he’s on the hot seat but then I look at that four-year extension.

Godspeed, Blues fans.

BEST NO BRAINER

Should I ask the Mayor of Vancouver if he’ll do a #ShotgunJake video? #Canucks — Alvin Singh (@AlvinSingh) December 21, 2018

BEST ANSWER

Zack MacEwen… — Cory (@CoryHergott) December 21, 2018

BEST POLL

@botchford who would you like to see *correctly* shotgun a beer #shotgunjake — randy B (@DuckingTheChamp) December 21, 2018

BEST MOMENT

How I was there when the ref asked Virtanen what the crowd was chanting and he had to explain Shotgun Jake to him.

This is life.

BEST EFFORT

Gaudette on his own rebound.

WORST EFFORT

Anything more depressing than a Littlethinger shot?

BEST EYES

Oh my.

BEST NEWS

BEST MAKES YOU THINK

@botchford does this team really miss Sutter? — Stephen Quinn (@GoFour3) December 21, 2018

It’s worth considering.

There’s a convincing argument to be made Sutter’s injury, which shoved Horvat into the deep sea to fend off the NHL’s fiercest sharks without much help at all, was the best thing for his development.

I don’t think the Canucks would move Sutter because they do value what he brings but if EP and Horvat are going to be playing near 20 minutes a night, it should be discussed at least when the pro scouts meet with Benning in January.

There were five inquiries about Sutter from teams early last offseason, all seriously looking at acquiring him.

The Canucks reasoned then they couldn’t go down that road because they needed Sutter in a post-Sedin world.

Now?

Well, things have changed.

BEST IT’S TIME

Marky has established himself as the Canucks starter.

Nilsson is on an expiring deal. In other words, he’s as good as gone.

The plan to boost Nilsson’s save percentage with weak opponents to help his trade value is still sitting on Green’s desk awaiting approval.

Meanwhile, Thatcher Demko, who some believe was one of the top two goalies outside the NHL in the past two years, has now played more than 100 AHL games.

One hundred seems like enough.

He needs a new challenge. He needs some good times.

How much of life in Utica can one top prospect mentally handle?

Here’s a list of some of the NHL’s top goalies for the past decade and their age when they arrived in the NHL.

Demko is now 23. It’s time.

Jonathan Quick – 22

Roberto Luongo – 20

Carey Price – 21

Lundqvist – 23

Rask – 22

Holtby – 23

Bobrovsky – 22

Thomas – 31 (!?!)

Miller – 23

Fleury – 18 (back to minors and back up at 22)

Schneider – 24

BEST EL-Oh-EL

Canucks pushing for those Tim Thomas peak years. Think of how good he'll be in 9 years! — OpThomas Prime (@ImRealGoode) December 21, 2018

BEST OF THE USA

Just going to lay this right here.

Heads up @Canucks and @Sportsnet. A fan has wandered onto the intermission set and is staring at the camera to see if he got his money’s worth out of his $19 haircut pic.twitter.com/4KKYhuQLvp — Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) December 21, 2018

BEST HI KEITH

BEST SUPPORT

You’re not alone, A&W.

BEST EFFORT

Maybe next time.

Kids were sleeping and apparently I’ve never done this before #shotgunjake #beginner pic.twitter.com/JMdmhemkba — Ryan Hank (@always90four) December 21, 2018

BEST TWO-PACK

There’s a Welly jersey at every game.

Never has a player who did so little been loved so much.

This ones for the VIPs! Check out this tag team! @botchford @WyattArndt Go Canucks Go pic.twitter.com/6QZzdqjano — Maureen Seguin (@MaureenSeguin) December 21, 2018

I honestly can’t escape Welly and it feels like it’s every night.

@botchford this has to be the greatest jersey in attendance this evening #athletties pic.twitter.com/ebSRE9Pl3K — Derek Weeres (@derekweeres) December 21, 2018

Now this one is a rarity:

Spotted outside section 319. I can say with the utmost confidence that this is the first Jeff Tambellini fan jersey I’ve seen. @botchford pic.twitter.com/xxtrOmRuwi — Clay Imoo (@CanuckClay) December 21, 2018

BEST QUESTION

Canucks dance cam is now sponsored by The Province. What will The Athletic sponsor? The Shotgun cam? — Patrick Johnston (@risingaction) December 21, 2018

We’ll let POSTMEDIA advertise for us!

BEST MYTH BUSTING

If the Canucks drafted Matt Tkachuk (and he has a similar season/impact to what he did in Calgary in his rookie year), do the Canucks finish low enough to grab a top-5 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft (to draft Elias Pettersson)? @SatiarShah @botchford @of_pettersson — Sascha Belagamage (@Silent__C) December 20, 2018

It has become the stuff of local legends.

If you think the Canucks should have drafted Tkachuk over Juolevi in 2016, and let’s face it many have believed this for years, there is a potential consequence which is hard to reconcile.

As folklore would tell it, the Canucks would have never been in a position to draft Elias Pettersson.

Tkachuk had 48 points with the Calgary Flames in his rookie season and, many contend, that kind of production would have been amazing in Vancouver, enough to push the Canucks up and out of second worst overall.

They needed to be that low because they lost the lottery, moved down three spots, and were still in position to snag Pettersson.

The Tank blessed us all that year.

I am here to relieve your guilt about yearning for Tkachuk over Juolevi.

If he was selected, he never would have played with the Canucks in his 18-year-old season.

Not with Trevor Linden still as president.

The 2016 draft came at the end of a difficult season for the Canucks who believed they made a mistake keeping both Jake Virtanen and Jaren McCann with the team when they were raw teenagers.

There is 0.0 chance Tkachuk was going to be given a shot to play in the NHL that year if he were drafted by the Canucks. They weren’t going to risk having the same situation they had with Virtanen and McCann.

In other words, everything would have stayed exactly the same.

Oh, and Willie Desjardins would have been gone when Tkachuk arrived in the NHL.

BEST TWEET LIKE THE PROS

This doesn’t look good.

Is this good?

Canucks record without MDZ: 10-3-2 Canucks record with MDZ: 6-14-2 MDZ was in the lineup for all 12 losses in that 13-game stretch@botchford @patersonjeff — Scott Rosenhek (@Scottr_31) December 20, 2018

BEST WAIT, WHAT?

McGuire: "All the pedigree analytics programs have failed, FLA, EDM, BUF all failed using analytics, ARI is failing. You cannot debate it." — NHL Prospects Watcher (@Prospects_Watch) December 20, 2018

Chayka hosting a fire sale of his best prospects because he’s trying to accelerate a rebuild that was barely off the ground doesn’t exactly scream “pedigree analytics program.”

No one in analytics can explain what Chayka does. I mean he just traded two really good prospects for Nick freaking Schmaltz who spent his “breakout” season last year playing nearly 1,000 minutes with Patrick Kane.

Those are Sedin-like WOWY minutes.

You know who was the last player to blow up getting that kind of ice time in Chicago with Patrick Kane?

Dave Bolland.

The problem with Chayka isn’t analytics. It’s his failure to build a high functioning culture with trust and communication and a plan that’s shared by the old school guys in the organization and whatever is in Chayka’s little black box.

If you don’t get this union right in hockey, you will never have success. Instead, your hockey men will be warring with your nerds, and one day you’ll wake up and realize you just gave away Max Domi.

And, sorry, the Edmonton Oilers are an analytics-based team?

I guess them getting talked into signing Mark Fayne counts?

That’s like calling the Canucks an analytics team.

And, uhm,

More Benning: “I’ll be perfectly honest with you. We won a Stanley Cup in Boston and we didn’t use analytics.” — Taj (@taj1944) May 27, 2016

Dale Tallon has been running Florida since 2010. Read that again. Honestly, the Panthers owners may be the most patient in all of sports.

Tallon was out for one brief stay during which Barkov and Huberdeau were signed to two of the NHL’s Mona Lisa contracts, Jonathan Marchessault was discovered, which should get you a job for life in this league, Reilly Smith was acquired then signed and Gudbranson was moved in a deal that set the Panthers up to sign Kucherov to an offer sheet.

If that had happened, it could have been one of hockey’s best offseasons in the past 10 years.

If you call that particular offseason a failure, you’re probably on Tallon’s payroll.

And the Sabres? For real?

I can’t figure out what’s more strange, the teams on this list or the fact Kyle Dubas’ team isn’t on it.

As far as analytics never succeeding, then how do you explain Sam Ventura, who co-founded the hockey statistics website war-on-ice.com, holding a freaking Stanley Cup?

BEST OH NO SHE DIDN’T

Oh yes, she sure did.

BEST STORY

It’s October 2016 and Central Scouting releases its preliminary “players to watch” list.

Players who are given an A-rating are first-round candidates.

Elias Pettersson has a “B” hung around his neck.

The grade is given to any prospect who projects as a second- or third-round pick.

The then-17-year-old Pettersson soon explodes for Timra to start Sweden’s Allsvenskan league season. He has seven points in his first eight games. By November, he’s already among the league’s best players, leading his team in points and on a point-per-game pace.

By December, he’s a point behind the league’s scoring leader three weeks after turning 18.

A prominent ranking list at the time by a big-time member of the media pushes Pettersson up his rankings, but just to 18th.

For what it’s worth, Button has since been among Pettersson’s biggest supporters and if anyone nailed the season EP is having right now, it absolutely is Button.

So, this isn’t meant as a slight on him or anyone who ranked EP low in the fall of 2016 but if you are wondering how Pettersson slipped to No. 5 overall in the 2017 draft, and people sure seem to be, it all starts right here.

What happened next is a story about self-preservation in a sport still controlled by risk-averse stubborn, misguided decision makers who often get trapped in wanting to look good and that can sometimes mean the best players in the game slip right through their outstretched fingers.

Pierre LeBrun took a run at the Pettersson draft story this week in The Athletic, including heavy commentary from Jim, of Jim-and-John fame here in Vancouver.

The one Benning comment which I thought revealing was when he talked about Pettersson being a late developer.

I am certain this was among the most discussed topics during the now infamous debates the Canucks organization were embroiled in after learning their draft position and concluding it was going to be either Cody Glass or Elias Pettersson for the Canucks at five.

This is how Trevor Linden described that time to me back in May and it’s definitely worth revisiting now.

LINDEN: “We had some interesting debates, but the conviction (the scouts) guys showed, they fought hard.

“It was a good, healthy debate as there should be, no question.

“But at the end of the day, our guys led by Judd, and the guys who had seen him the most were adamant that he be our guy.”

The “they fought hard” part of Linden’s quote resonates in Vancouver. It’s incredibly revealing in how difficult it was to convince an NHL brass to take Pettersson with the fifth-overall pick even though the organization loved him.

It was still no slam dunk.

So, why?

That particular question can be asked about Pettersson but also Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick who were widely considered locks to go No. 1 and No. 2 and that consensus matters which is something I’ll circle back on.

Both Hischier and Patrick were good prospects. Both deserved to be in the conversation at the top of the draft. But neither was good enough or elite enough or separated enough to be viewed as mortal locks for the one, two slots over players like Pettersson.

This is a fact and it was not a secret.

“(Pettersson’s) improvement in his draft year is what caught guys flat-footed. Improvement really fucks guys up,” one source explained.

“A scout might have seen him 2-3 times before the mid-year rankings and had him down the list.

“But the kid takes off.

“Scout loves him, but they get anchored to their old viewings.

“If they don’t, they have to justify why they were so off in their rankings a few months ago.”

This is hardly unique to Pettersson’s situation.

Filip Chytil had second- and third-round grades during his draft year, the same one as Pettersson.

Chytil got significantly better as the season went on and by the draft there were analytics people and scouts who had him up in the first round.

But there was one team which had the stones to take him, and that was the New York Rangers. It was a gutsy pick at 21 and today they’re getting paid back for their balls in a big way.

Chytil was a massive riser and war rooms would have been buzzing about him. There are teams with regret they didn’t jump on him when they were considering it earlier.

It’s not just a coincidence it was the Rangers who took the chance on Chytil.

New York had two first round picks and when you do, you can make bigger bets.

It becomes much more difficult at the top of the first round.

And that brings us back to Pettersson.

The unnamed sources in LeBrun’s story were actually revealing as they awkwardly described why their teams didn’t take him before Vancouver.

The Flyers:

The Stars:

The Avs:

This is some revealing intel.

The Stars were sure Nico/Nolan were going one and two, which seems crazy a year later, and they were only willing to take EP if they traded down which would have lessened their risk.

The Flyers “REALLY” liked Pettersson but were as conservative as Dallas, willing only to take EP if they traded down.

If you love him so much to text in capitals how the hell is he not an option at No. 2?

What is going on here?

“Scouts get fired for fucking up a first-rounder. You pull a first or second overall bust and you’re excommunicated.

“No one gets fired for taking the consensus picks at No. 1 or 2.

“Even if they get the rankings right, often they need to have the balls to go against the herd and take the player.”

In other words, Elias Pettersson dropped because teams ahead of the Canucks didn’t have the balls to draft him.

“That’s the Pettersson story for me.”

Me too.

(Top photo: Derek Cain/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)