Was Bo Horvat What the Islanders Needed?

On January 31, 2022, Bo Horvat was traded from the Vancouver Canucks to the New York Islanders for Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Raty, and a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 NHL draft. The Canucks also retained 25% of Horvat’s salary, leaving $4.125 million as his cap hit for the Islanders during the remainder of the 22-23 season.

This article is going to go into depth to see if Horvat has been making an impact on this playoff-chasing team and if the Islanders are benefiting from the trade. To start, the Islanders are 7-3-3 in Horvats 13 games played, and Horvat has had five goals and three assists for a total of eight points and a +/- rating of +3. Horvat’s goal types have been varied, with one power-play goal, one short-handed goal, and one game-winning goal, with his 38 shots on goal.

The Islanders are currently 29th in the NHL for power-play percentage (% of times a team scores on their power-play), but Horvat is here to fix that. According to Evolving Hockey, Horvat’s z-score for power-play goals for per 60 minutes (PP GF/60) is one, which, when using statistics to measure out the z-score into a percentile, means that Horvat scores more than 84% of NHL players while on the power play.

In addition to the power play, the Islanders have struggled with their offense. Horvat is currently in the 97th percentile for offensive production according to Evolving Hockey, and Horvat’s GAR (goals above replacement) also shows his capabilities of producing offensively. Horvat is currently in the 94.4th percentile for GAR of EVO, EVD, PPO, SHD, TAKE, and DRAW combined (Evolving Hockey). This means that Horvat’s GAR is better than 94.4% of players and also shows that he is only “replaceable” by a small group of people.

Lastly, to look at Horvat’s impact on the Islanders themselves, I took the stats for goals for percentage (GF%), shots for percentage (SF%), Corsi for percentage (CF%), goals for per 60 minutes (GF/60), shots for per 60 minutes (SF/60), and Corsi for per 60 minutes (CF/60) from the 13 games before Horvat was traded and compared them to the 13 games that Horvat has been on the Islanders.

Through these numbers, we can see that Horvat has made an impact on the team as a whole. The Islanders’ GF% improved by 13.23 percent, the SF% improved by .7 percent, the CF% improved by 1.19 percent, and the GF/60 improved by .75. While the SF/60 and CF/60 have both decreased, those can be accounted for with the injury to Mat Barzal, who averages 2.4 shots on goal per game.

While there may be other confounding variables that led the Islanders’ statistics to improve, Bo Horvat deserves some of the credit. Only time will tell if Horvat’s numbers will continue to help the Islanders and if he can help his new team make the playoffs.