It’s been a while since the Red Wings last found themselves at the center of hot trade deadline speculation as a buyer. In recent years, as the team’s rebuild has slugged along, this time of year has been all about which Detroit players could be on their way out of town.
But the run-up to this year’s deadline has taken on a different tone when it comes to the much-discussed Bo Horvat sweepstakes. The Athletic contributor Rick Dhaliwal was the latest to mention the Red Wings around Horvat talks this week — and the idea resonates on a number of different levels. The Red Wings are a team looking to improve, they need more offense, and as has been the case for years, they could especially use that boost at the center position.
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So, does trading for Horvat make sense for Detroit? Let’s break down the particulars.
The appeal
Horvat is the kind of center any team would love to have. He’s already scored 31 goals this season, for starters, but he’s also a captain, a dominant faceoff man and plenty comfortable in the hard areas of the ice.
Adding him to this year’s Detroit team still likely wouldn’t be enough to get into the playoffs, but the motivations behind trading for him would be what he could bring in the coming years, after presumably being extended in short order. A Dylan Larkin-Horvat 1-2 punch down the middle would give Detroit two prime-aged centers at the top of their lineup — not in the mold of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, granted, but at least comparable to the Ryan O’Reilly-Brayden Schenn duo that St. Louis won the Stanley Cup with in 2019.
Detroit has been looking for answers behind Larkin for the past five seasons, and adding Horvat would allow the Red Wings to either flex current second-line center Andrew Copp to the wing — where he played at times in the playoffs for the Rangers last season — or to the third line, and he would fit well in either role.
Put simply, slotting him into the top six with Larkin would put the Red Wings’ center position in its best shape since Henrik Zetterberg retired.
The questions
There aren’t many questions about Horvat the player, but there are some that revolve around how much of his 2022-23 production can be sustained. Right now, he’s on pace for 50 goals this season, but that’s buoyed by an unsustainably high shooting percentage at nearly 22 percent. His career average is 14 percent, and if Horvat were converting at that rate this season, he’d be on pace for more like 34 goals — which would still be quite good! Again, he’s a very good player.
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Horvat is in a contract year, though, and so while his scoring bender this season is certainly well-timed for him, it doesn’t lend well to tidy negotiations for a prospective acquirer like Detroit. Horvat’s going to smash his career bests in goals and points soon, but entering the season, those markers were at 31 goals and 61 points — which would have put him in different contract territory than what Horvat may now be able to command off of this season. Vancouver’s president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford has already alluded to this dynamic in the Canucks’ negotiations.
“I believe we’ve taken our best shot (on Bo Horvat). With the offer we have on the table right now is fair value for what he’s done up to this year…
“We’re in a pickle here. He’s had a career run and he’s looking for his money.” – Rutherford. #Canucks
— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) January 16, 2023
This is something any team acquiring Horvat has to be conscious of: not just how much of Horvat’s breakout will be repeated, but how much you’re going to have to pay on his next contract to find out.
And Detroit, of course, is already going through a drawn-out negotiation on its own top center right now in Larkin. To that end, one point that seems important: The notion of trading for Horvat and not extending Larkin may seem plausible as a sort of safety net for Detroit, but in practice, it would likely look much more like treading water at best (and giving up assets in a Horvat trade to do so). It’s hard to see that actually making much sense for the Red Wings.
If the Red Wings trade for Horvat, then it needs to be as a complement to Larkin — and, for what it’s worth, there are issues even with that.
While adding Horvat would certainly elevate the Red Wings, it’s fair to question the wisdom of committing potentially upward of $16 million to two centers of near-identical age. Detroit would be better positioned to finally push for the playoffs as soon as next season — partly depending on what they have to give up, of course — but they still might not even have a top-four center duo in their own division, depending on what happens with Boston’s Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci after the season.
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Eventually, of course, some of the Atlantic powers will age, but so will Detroit’s centers, and the Red Wings would then be paying the typically-less-fruitful late years of those contracts simultaneously. Both players are certainly worthy of the kind of max-term, high-dollar deals they are going to get — but if you’re a team committing to both deals at the same time, after giving up young pieces in a trade, you’re likely going to need to do some damage in the early years.
What could Vancouver ask for?
For this section, I tagged in The Athletic’s Canucks writer Harman Dayal to get a sense of what Vancouver might seek in a Horvat swap.
Dayal: Vancouver’s ask is reportedly for three young players, including a top prospect, according to Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek. That tracks with my sense and the Canucks’ publicly stated desire to retool rather than rebuild. The Canucks are paper-thin down the middle — especially because of the uncertainty around whether J.T. Miller can excel at center — and have zero bona fide top-four right-handed defenders, so players at those positions would be highly coveted.
This new regime’s been very aggressive with their trade asks. When Miller was on the block last year, my sense is that Alexis Lafrenière was one of the primary pieces they wanted in a package and more recently, when rumors surfaced regarding Carolina’s interest in Horvat, it’s been speculated that the Canucks may have asked for Martin Necas or Seth Jarvis. With all that in mind, I have a strong suspicion that their ask would start with top-flight center prospect Marco Kasper, who I know the Canucks were high on going into the draft last summer.
Bultman: Certainly would have to respect that ask when talking about Vancouver’s captain, but I just have a hard time seeing Detroit being willing to part with Kasper for a pending UFA who will need a new contract immediately — especially when Canucks brass has openly stated they’re treating Horvat’s huge season as an outlier.
But I agree that the Canucks likely will — and should — be aggressive in all trade asks for Horvat. Centers of his caliber have a history of getting serious returns even as pending UFAs. This is not a deal they should make lightly, and there will be plenty of suitors.
I know from what The Athletic colleagues Thomas Drance and Dhaliwal have reported the Canucks are believed to be seeking young centers and right-shot defense at the heart of these deals, and while Detroit’s farm system is thin at RHD, they do have several interesting young lefties. They also have Filip Hronek, who is not a prospect but is just 25 and has team control remaining after his current deal expires, which could fit into a “retool” approach. And at center, they have young pivots Joe Veleno and Michael Rasmussen as well.
So I guess my question is, is a deal that doesn’t include either Kasper or fellow top-10 pick Simon Edvinsson even possible?
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Dayal: I don’t think it would be ideal from Vancouver’s perspective. Kasper would definitely be the prize in Vancouver’s eyes. But at a certain point, they will have to accept the best offer that the market bears, especially if they don’t grant teams permission to speak to Horvat’s agent to discuss an extension beforehand. If they can’t get a stud center or RD prospect of Kasper’s ilk from another team, they’ll have to settle for something less.
I think Veleno or Rasmussen could be interesting secondary pieces. Hronek could fit the Canucks’ need to inject a top-four righty — perhaps he’d entice management. I know he’s taken a big step this season, how would you describe his game? I know he’s more of an offensive defenseman and the Canucks do have Quinn Hughes, so they’d need someone who can ideally provide two-way value.
Bultman: The defensive side is probably where Hronek has taken the biggest step this season, at least to my eye. At first, I thought it was mainly a product of his deployment with Olli Määttä early on, but he and Määttä have been split up for a while now and his defensive numbers have largely held up. The Red Wings are giving up 2.44 expected goals per 60 minutes with Hronek on the ice at five-on-five this season, according to Evolving Hockey, which is second on the team to only Jake Walman.
I wouldn’t call him a shutdown guy, mind you. But I think he has earned at least two-way credibility at this stage.
The big question for both teams, though, might be how much stock you’re putting into this season. Is it a breakout, or will it be an outlier? I think I’d lean more toward the former, given his age and the fact he’s finally out of the overexposed role he was in early in his career. But it’s certainly fair to question whether he keeps this up in a different defensive structure, or an environment where he’s asked to be the defensive stalwart.
Dayal: It’s interesting because in my opinion, the Canucks should take a much longer rebuild-type view on turning this team around, in which case a player like Hronek, who’s in his prime right now, wouldn’t be as appealing.
But from Canucks management’s perspective, a 25-year-old bona fide top-four right-shot D, who will still be an RFA once his current contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, could be quite appealing. The contract timing makes a lot of sense too since that will be the summer Tyler Myers will finally come off the books, meaning some of his cash could be allocated to any raise Hronek could need.
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I’m not privy to how highly the Canucks view Hronek and it’s not easy to pin down his precise value because of the big breakout he’s had so I can’t give a definitive yes or no. I still believe Kasper is who they would really bargain hard for. But if we envision a scenario where the Canucks do like Hronek, a deal around that could be attractive because I’m not sure they’ll be offered many other packages that include a prime-aged top-four righty.
Bultman: Just for the sake of due diligence, is a first-round pick in the Canucks’ designs here? Or is it all player/prospect centric? I would very much question the wisdom of a team like Detroit trading its first-rounder in a year like this (or even next year), but just to cover our bases.
Dayal: The Canucks should be prioritizing acquiring a first-round pick as part of a Horvat deal, but I honestly don’t think that’s what they have their eyes set on.
So, should Detroit do it?
There’s no doubting the appeal of Horvat as a long-awaited No. 2 center — he would immediately give the Red Wings more offense, something they badly need, and at a position at which they’ve been weak for far too long.
But the question that’s hard to get around: Are the Red Wings ready to bet Horvat is their missing piece? Because in order to justify locking in their top-six center picture for the foreseeable future, they would likely need to take advantage of that center combo in the next four or five seasons.
And given what the price would be to get him, whether they’d be able to do that is an open question. The Red Wings could justify a deal that moves Hronek as the centerpiece for Horvat in a vacuum, but then they would be left looking for a right-shot replacement for him almost immediately. And if they were to give up a top prospect such as the ones Dayal mentioned (or a premium draft pick) instead, they would then lose the immense value of a young, cost-controlled key piece that would only become more important with two centers signed to big-money deals.
For all those reasons — and even enticing as it may be to envision Detroit making a play for Horvat as a buyer in a blockbuster — there are still plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the long-term utility of a Horvat-Detroit trade.
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But the Red Wings have also seen how hard it is to acquire top-six centers in this league. And if they can live with what’s going back the other way, they may well decide it’s worth the risk.
(Photo of Bo Horvat: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
