Nearly three years ago to the day, the Vancouver Canucks made a decision that may as well have changed the course of their franchise. On January 30, 2023, Vancouver traded then-captain Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders in exchange for a 2023 first-round pick, Anthony Beauvillier, and Aatu Räty. With the Canucks’ most recent captain, Quinn Hughes, also being traded recently, discourse has turned back towards whether or not the team’s decision to move on from Horvat was the correct one or not.
The decision to move on from Horvat felt as though it’d been made prior to the team actually trading him. Instead, it seemed as though the Canucks had signalled that they’d be parting ways with the forward during the previous off-season when they signed J.T. Miller to a seven-year, $8M AAV contract extension that would put Vancouver in a tough situation cap-wise when it came to reaching a deal with Horvat.
Vancouver found themselves in a tough situation during this particular season, 2022–23, given the uncertainty behind Head Coach Bruce Boudreau’s fate with the team as well as where Horvat stood. The days preceding and following Horvat’s trade marked big shifts in the organization’s direction, as the team also hired a new Head Coach in Rick Tocchet.
The return on the Horvat trade can be looked at in a couple of ways. In theory, the only piece still with the Canucks from this is Räty, as Vancouver traded Beauvillier to the Chicago Blackhawks shortly after, while the first-round pick was used to acquire Filip Hronek closer to the Trade Deadline. Vancouver did have to give up a second-round pick as well to obtain Hronek, but also received a fourth-round selection as part of the deal.
Since joining the organization, Räty and Hronek have been big parts of the Canucks. With Hughes now with the Minnesota Wild, Hronek has found his role increased on both the offensive side of the game as well as from a leadership perspective. Räty has had his role increased particularly throughout the past two seasons, as Vancouver’s center depth had struggled after trading Miller last year. This particular issue down the middle has also struck up thoughts on what the team would look like if Horvat had stayed.
One of the other reasons as to why Horvat’s trade has come up as of late is his startling offensive production so far this season. While he is currently day-to-day due to injury, Horvat has tallied 19 goals and 12 assists in his first 32 games of the 2025–26 season. Prior to his injury, he’d been tied with Connor Bedard for fourth in the NHL in goals scored. While he has yet to hit the 40-goal mark, Horvat has come close as a member of the Islanders, scoring 33 in his first full season with the team (2023–24). In his time with the Canucks, he’d mainly put up numbers in the mid-20s when it came to goal-scoring.
Had the Canucks made the decision to move on from Miller instead of Horvat during the 2022–23 season, it’s hard to say that Vancouver would have seen the same playoff success that they did the year after. Miller was a big part in the Canucks’ domination during both the regular season and playoffs, leading the team in points with 103 and being solid defensively on occasions. With that being said, it’s likely that Vancouver still would have managed to acquire Hronek by some means — probably by flipping part of what the hypothetical return for Miller would have been — and that they could have made the playoffs off the strength of Hughes, Thatcher Demko, Brock Boeser, and Elias Pettersson’s regular-season performances.
Even if the Canucks had acquired Hronek and signed the same players they did during the 2023 off-season, it’s still unclear whether or not Horvat would have been able to put up the same numbers that he did with the Islanders in the 2023–24 season. He finished the year with 68 points in 81 games, considerably less than Miller’s, but would have given Vancouver an edge on the defensive side of the ice that may have given them further success come the post-season.
When it comes to the Horvat trade, of course there are a lot of hypotheticals to consider. If they hadn’t been operating at the same level of success as they had with Miller during the 2023–24 season, would Vancouver still have traded for Elias Lindholm? If so, would the return have looked any different given that a Miller trade likely would have fetched them more than what they got for him last year? Would Tocchet-style hockey have gelled the same way with a Horvat-led group as it would have with a Hughes-led group?
If all of the on-ice statistics and playoff pushes are ignored, there’s one major thing that would stand out when it comes to Vancouver choosing Horvat instead of Miller, and it’s not the rift between him and Pettersson that dominated headlines last year (though that’s a completely different rabbit hole to fall down). Rather, it’s the fact that Horvat, a player who was given time to grow while surrounded by leadership figures in the organization, would remain captain for a fifth season rather than the team giving the ‘C’ to a 23-year-old Hughes. As true as it is that Hughes had been a leader for his team throughout his tenure with the Canucks, bearing that burden alongside the pressure of being your team’s best player is a heavy weight to shoulder.
Moving on from Horvat, in theory, gave the Canucks one year of excellence. But as soon as the 2023–24 season ended, it felt as though the team fell right back down to their usual dwelling only a couple points out of a playoff spot. Had they chosen to keep Horvat over Miller, that playoff run may not have occurred — but that in itself could have kick-started a completely different movement on its own.
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