Ben Kuzma: Embracing opportunity key to Canucks' Leivo winging it next season

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First full season in NHL finally providing new lease on career for restricted free agent

“Obviously, he was one of the guys we had to watch every time we played him in junior, and when I was out there, it was my job to shut him down,” Bo Horvat recalled of matching OHL wits with the winger.

Leivo has 10 goals in 47 games since the swap — he had 14 goals in 84 career games with the Leafs — and being instantly aligned with Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser was by design. Leivo always had a heavy and accurate shot and is good with the puck in traffic. In his first game, he took a slick cross-ice feed from Pettersson and rang a shot off the post and past Devan Dubnyk just seven minutes into his Canucks debut.

Travis Green harps on having players he can win with, because the Canucks coach knows his club can’t take the next development step with one-dimensional players who only know one end of the ice. Leivo leads the Canucks with a plus-six rating in 13:52 of average ice time. Leivo is one of the club’s five restricted free-agent forwards. What works for the 6-2, 192-pound Innisfil, Ont., native for a contract extension is the ability to play both wings, play up and down the lineup and be effective on the power play as the slot presence.

Amid uncertainty how the left side will evolve next season — Antoine Roussel is out a minimum six months after anterior cruciate ligament surgery last week, Sven Baertschi has a concussion history, Ryan Spooner and Tim Schaller haven’t shown much and RFA Nikolay Goldobin looks down here — Leivo will be of even more value, regardless of what the club may or may not do in free agency.

 

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