"That one stings": Canucks Bo' Horvat on embarrassing shootout gaffe

Like most of the fanbase, Bo Horvat probably wished last night’s Vancouver Canucks game ended a little bit differently.

Up 3-0 in the first period against Nashville, Horvat’s Canucks suddenly saw themselves facing overtime and then a shootout on their home ice at Rogers Arena.

With the game on his stick to try to keep things going in the third round of the shootout, well, the team’s leading scorer in Horvat hit the blooper reel rather than the highlight reel, with the puck merely trickling off his blade as he entered the offensive zone.

Oof, that's a tough way to lose pic.twitter.com/ha0x9JwsUk

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) November 6, 2022

Ouch.

12 games into the season, Vancouver has just three wins on the year, as the Canucks are sporting a record of 3-6-3 in the 2022-23 campaign.

Ouch.

While Horvat understands the high-profile nature of his gaffe for the slumping Canucks, he didn’t really have any better explanation for it other than “stuff happens.”

“Obviously, I’d like to have that one back. That one stings a lot,” Horvat explained to CBC’s After Hours program.  “Yeah, obviously, I’ve done that route and that move a lot of times and the puck just bounced on me and yeah, it is what it is.”

Horvat was then asked about the Canucks’ mentality of being “afraid to lose,” as mentioned by coach Bruce Boudreau in previous media availabilities.

“It’s creeping into our game obviously a lot this year and now that’s something that’s just maturity. And now we have to we have to clean up our game, obviously, we dominated I thought for 50 minutes of that hockey game,” Horvat added. “The shots speak for themselves and no, it’s just those lulls that we just cannot find those opportunities to capitalize. It’s an unacceptable by us giving up three [goals].”

Vancouver hits the road to play Ottawa on Tuesday night, with puck drop set at 4 pm PT. One can only hope that Horvat’s waxed the stick a little bit harder ahead of that contest.