There is a world in which only five players in Vancouver Canucks history will have produced more points than Elias Pettersson by the end of the 2025-26 National Hockey League season. That world will require the enigmatic centreman to return to the form he showed three seasons ago when he posted a career-high 102 points and finished 10th in NHL scoring.
Pettersson currently sits ninth in franchise scoring with 457 points in 471 career games. Even with a highly disappointing 45 points last season, the 26-year-old remains nearly a point per game player (0.970/game) through seven full seasons in the league. 
If Pettersson regains his old form and scoring touch, he’ll soar past Tony Tanti (470) and Pavel Bure (478) and will have a realistic chance of catching Thomas Gradin who sits sixth on the list with 550 points. Even another middling season should allow Pettersson to hit the 500 point mark at some juncture in the second half of the schedule.
If he remains healthy, Pettersson will hit the 500 game mark prior to Christmas. With 15 goals next season, he will also reach the 200 milestone for his career. When that happens, Pettersson will become the 10th player in franchise history to score 200 goals in a Canucks uniform. A 30-goal season will leave him eighth among all time Canucks.
Pettersson also needs 28 assists to hit 300 in his career. He currently sits 11th on the franchise’s all-time helpers list. In short order, the Sundsvall, Sweden native will pass JT Miller (285), Dennis Kearns (290) and Alex Edler (310).
Two seasons ago, Pettersson scored a career-best 13 power play goals. Last season that number dropped to just seven. With 58 to his credit, Pettersson sits 13th in goals with the man advantage. He needs 12 more to move past Pavel Bure into eighth with 70. 
Two years ago, Pettersson netted 10 game winners. Last season just one. Despite that, Pettersson will start next season tied with Trevor Linden for fourth in franchise history with 33 winners in their careers. That leaves them five behind Henrik Sedin (38) and after that it’s just Markus Naslund (49) and Daniel Sedin (86).
One other thing to note about Pettersson. He is the only player in the franchise’s top 40 scorers with fewer than 100 penalty minutes. Pettersson is sitting on 88 penalty minutes for his career. He had 18 in his second season but since then has registered a high of 14. So it’s possible that Pettersson will hit the century mark for PIM by season’s end.
When it comes to playoff production, Pettersson has 24 points in 30 career games. That leaves him 22nd in franchise playoff scoring behind Kevin Bieksa and Brendan Morrison. However, 10 playoff points would move Pettersson into a tie for 12th with Alex Burrows and 20 postseason points would get him to seventh on the list. So one big spring could see EP40 vault up the list in a hurry.
But first things first, it’s about having a big summer of training so that when he hits training camp in September, he can put the difficulties of last season behind him and get his stalled career back in the fast lane again.
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