Canucks’ Bo Horvat feels fans’ frustration amid winless start

Things are not going well for the Vancouver Canucks at the moment.

After finishing 40-30-12 last season, much of the fanbase was promised an improved performance in 2022-23, especially with head coach Bruce Boudreau at the helm for his first full campaign. But instead, the opposite has occurred thus far, with tempers boiling over this past weekend.

The Canucks, who opened this season with five straight road contests, returned to Rogers Arena on Saturday for their home-opener against the Buffalo Sabres. It was supposed to provide optimism for a team that had gone 0-3-2 out of the gate. Unfortunately, it was met with continued frustration instead.

Buffalo jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes and didn’t look back, ultimately securing a 5-1 victory over Vancouver. In the later stages of the game, some fans voiced their displeasure by littering the ice with jerseys in protest of the team’s early efforts.

Following another crushing defeat, captain Bo Horvat spoke to reporters and was asked about the home crowd throwing jerseys onto the ice. His comments, however, probably won’t ease the pain that fans are currently experiencing.

“My jersey got thrown on the ice last year and I’ll never forget that for as long as I play,” Horvat explained. “It’s something that hits home, and when you see it again happening this year, it definitely sucks. But I understand their frustration.

“We haven’t really given them much to cheer about. It’s been a lot of years in the rebuild stage and… at this point in the season, it just feels like it’s never going to happen, like we’re never going to win again.”

For a team that’s winless through six games, this damning response likely isn’t something you want coming from your dressing room. It is the opposite, actually.

But it’s tough to blame Horvat for being honest about feeling this way. After all, the Canucks became the first team in NHL history to lose four straight games after holding a multi-goal lead in each contest earlier this season, according to Sportsnet Stats.

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And Horvat isn’t the only Canucks player feeling frustrated over the club’s miserable start. Teammate Curtis Lazar, who grew up rooting for this franchise, believes fans deserve better than the product they’ve witnessed this season.

“I feel like it’s warranted by the way we played, especially near the end of the game,” Lazar said. “Every game this year we’ve had our chance to win (in the third period) and our response hasn’t been there. That’s an area that we need to find that urgency and come together within this dressing room.

“The fans are passionate; that’s the great thing about playing here. They want to see a response, and we want to see a response ourselves. You can talk about those external things, the fans and what everyone’s probably saying about us, but it comes down to what we have in this dressing room. We do believe we have a good team — a lot better than we’ve been showing. But it’s what I said to you before: Words are one thing, actions are another.”

That sentiment runs strongly throughout the organization, particularly with Boudreau, who questioned his players’ professionalism during Saturday’s post-game press conference. The 67-year-old coach is demanding more of his players amid the club’s six-game losing skid.

No one could’ve imagined this terrible start for the Canucks, especially not after they finished 32-15-10 under Boudreau last season. If anything, most experts assumed they’d hit the ground running, not fall flat on it.

But with 76 games remaining, there is still plenty of time for Vancouver to turn this ship around, although that likely needs to occur sooner rather than later to avoid a third straight summer without playoff hockey.

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