Trade coming? Bo Horvat reportedly rejects Canucks' best contract offer

Contract talks are not going well at all between Bo Horvat and the Vancouver Canucks.

The Canucks captain is a pending unrestricted free agent, as he plays out the final year of a six-year contract that has a $5.5 million average annual salary.

The 27-year-old is due a big raise this summer given he has 20 goals in 28 games this season and had 31 goals in 70 games last season.

But will the money come from the Canucks?

The latest report on the situation from CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal is bleak. On today’s edition of Donnie and Dhali, Dhaliwal indicated that Horvat has rejected the Canucks’ best offer and that the team will look to trade him.

“The Canucks made an offer to Bo Horvat recently. It was rejected,” said Dhaliwal. “The Canucks have stretched it to as far as they could go, as of right now, I believe they have gone as far as they can go. Even with the number the Canucks were willing to go to, they would have been over the cap at the end of the season… The Canucks will now take the best offer for Bo.”

"As of right now I believe they have gone as far as they can go.."

.@DhaliwalSports opens the show with the latest between the #Canucks and Bo Horvathttps://t.co/h4e2SKLzpb pic.twitter.com/08ttjSv2IS

— Donnie & Dhali (@DonnieandDhali) December 12, 2022

Dhaliwal believes the Canucks’ offer was below $8 million per season, which is the number that J.T. Miller got on the contract extension he signed in September. It’s also less than the $8.45 million per season extension that Roope Hintz signed with the Dallas Stars two weeks ago.

“People are going to ask, what was the Canucks’ offer? Knowing what I know about everything that’s gone on in the last few months, I’m gonna guess it was under [$8 million per season],” Dhaliwal said.

“It has played a factor… Those comparables affected the Horvat contract,” Dhaliwal added, referencing the Hintz contract, as well as the matching eight-year extensions the Blues signed with Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas, which will pay them $8.125 million per season.

Dhaliwal’s intel is in line with what Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on December 8, when the NHL insider said extension talks with Horvat weren’t “trending well.”

Horvat was drafted by Vancouver ninth overall in 2013 and has played the entirety of his 600-game NHL career with the Canucks. He was named captain in 2019.

Horvat ranks second on the Canucks in points (29) and first in goals (20), in 28 games, and will shatter his career highs in those categories if he keeps up this pace.

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