New York Islanders forward Bo Horvat is firing on all cylinders. But he's not content just yet.
New York Islanders forward Bo Horvat is firing on all cylinders. But he's not content just yet.
EAST MEADOW, NY -- New York Islanders forward Bo Horvat is on a roll.
After scoring the Islanders' third goal of the night against the Montreal Canadiens in a 5-3 loss, the 28-year-old extended his point streak to a career-high 10 games with seven goals and nine assists:
"Things are going well, and pucks are going in, but for me, not much has changed in my game," Horvat said following Monday's practice. "Pucks are going in. People are finishing for me. So, for me, not trying to change my game and get out of my element. Just keep playing the way I'm playing."
Confidence is a dangerous thing.
"Obviously, when you're producing and stuff -- and winning games helps -- it just gives you confidence whenever the pucks going in or you're creating plays and making stuff happen," Horvat told The Hockey News. "Confidence is a big thing in this game. I really believe that. Playing with confidence is a big part of my game and, obviously, why things are going so well."
Islanders head coach Lane Lambert hasn't seen any change in Horvat's game and certainly has liked what he's seen outside of the point production.
"I've liked his game all along. I think his work ethic is outstanding right now," Lambert said. "Again, because of that, not only with him but any other player -- we've talked about Barzal this way too -- is that the harder you work without the puck, the better position you're in when you get the puck, and I think he's doing a great job of that."
For Horvat, he knew that his numbers last season when he joined the Islanders weren't indicative of how he thought he was playing.
While he only had seven goals in 30 games -- albeit without linemate Mathew Barzal -- the lack of results mixed with moving his family across the continent wore on him.
He spoke about that mental toll in his final media availability of the 2022-23 season:
But now, having his family settled has taken a load off of him, and we are seeing Horvat flourish on the ice.
"Getting a training camp under my belt was huge. Being able to get my family settled in and move into the new house and, and not have to deal with what-ifs all the time has been a huge change and a big change in a great way," Horvat told THN. "And yeah, it's just kind of been a weight off the shoulders and now I just got to come to work every day and play hockey.”
There was a tremendous amount of outside noise when Horvat was moved from Vancouver and even more when the production took a nose dive.
"It's still a long year. I still a lot to have to prove and still a lot of hockey left to be played," Horvat said. "I truly believe that I can be a big part of this team and their success and help them win and produce. I mean, I think there's there's a lot more to my game than just producing too."
One area of Horvat's game that is not firing on all cylinders has been his face-off numbers.
Through the first nine years of his career, Horvat operated at a 54 percent clip in the face-off dot, winning 52 percent of his defensive zone draws.
But this season, while the offensive numbers have been fantastic, Horvat is winning less than 50 percent of his draws for the first time in his career.
"I gotta keep working on my face-offs. I know they haven't been great this year," Horvat said. "And that's something that I usually take a lot of pride in, and I have to get back to being that guy in the dot."
Through 29 games, Horvat has won just 48.8 percent of his draws. Here's the breakdown:
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"It is what it is," Horvat said. "I don't know. I've tried different things, and I think I just got to maybe go back and resort to what makes me good, and that's just being strong and quick in the dot.
"Maybe get back to my old habits and just bear down and win those big face-offs when they need me to. When I win the face-offs, we're either getting a good scoring chance or scoring goals."
THN asked Horvat how much confidence plays a factor in the dot or if it is truly just more about physical ability.
"It's a little bit of both, I mean, timing thing for sure, but the mental side, you got to know who you're going against and what you're going to be doing each draw," Horvat said. "So, for me mentally, I gotta go in there knowing that I'm gonna have a great chance to win the face-off. And it's like, we talked about it before on the power play, when you mentally know you're gonna go out there and get a good chance or have the confidence when you're going to score its, same thing going to the dot.
"You gotta know you have a good chance of winning it."
How do the different zones impact what Horvat's face-off game plan is going to be?
"It depends on a lot of factors. I think when you're struggling, you kind of resort to tying guys up, or when you're going against different guys, you pick what side you want the face-off to be on," Horvat said. "But I mean, for me, I try not to deviate from the plan too much. I try to do a lot of the same things every time and to see what works, but, obviously, this year, I gotta figure something out."
Horvat shared that he checks his face-off stats between each period so he knows where he's at.
"I check at every intermission. Just mostly face-offs," Horvat said. "I mean, for me, if I know where I am, like where I'm at after every single period, I kind of know what I have to do or if I have to be better. You kind of have a mental thing, but I mean, to see the number if you're sitting at 30 percent, I'm like. I gotta bear down here. So I tend to check it."
The Islanders have struggled to hold onto leads late in games, and a large part of that is failing to win the defensive zone draws, which has given the opponents an added opportunity to make New York pay.
While that doesn't fall solely on the shoulders of Horvat, he bears some responsibility for that and knows that it's an area of his game that he needs to fix in order to give his team the best chance at collecting two points at a consistent rate.
You can watch Rosner talk Islanders hockey on Hockey Night in New York with co-host Sean Cuthbert live Sunday nights at 8 PM ET during the season at twitch.tv/hockeynightny.