With the Vancouver Canucks now officially eliminated from playoff contention, let the season postmortems begin.
One player whose future in Vancouver will be at the top of the mind heading into the off-season is Elias Pettersson. Between injuries, locker room feuds, and the lowest per-game point production of his career, it was no doubt a season the Swedish attacker would soon like to forget.
In a piece from Sportnet’s Iain MacIntyre published Friday, Canucks GM Patrik Allvin spoke about the team’s plans for Pettersson heading into the summer, the hope being that he remains in Vancouver:
Allvin said Pettersson’s summer training program will be a key part of exit-meeting discussions, and indicated it might be best for the Swede to stay in Vancouver to train this off-season.“That’s something we’re obviously going to talk about here when the season is over and have a plan for it,” the GM said. “We have the right resources here to help him. Listen, he has the ability to dictate the future, and I’m sure he wants to come back to his normal (form) and wants to continue to grow and get better. So we have absolutely the commitment and resources here to help him do that.”
He also notes that players have a right to dictate where they spend their summers, so the decision will ultimately be up to Pettersson.
Pettersson closed out his 2024-25 campaign on March 22nd against the New York Rangers, exiting after just under eight minutes played with an upper-body injury. It was later speculated that Pettersson could be out for the remainder of the season, and considering there are just three games on the schedule remaining, that looks to be the case.
The Swedish centre finished the year with 15 goals and 45 points, his worst season in nearly every category across the board (barring the 2020-21 season, where he only played 26 games). He also appeared in all three games for Sweden in February’s 4 Nations Face-Off but finished without a point.
The headline of his season, unfortunately, became his off-ice conflict with Miller, with the situation seemingly becoming a matter of trading one or the other. With Pettersson being the player the Canucks held on to from that feud, there’s a sense of expectation on his shoulder from the organization that he works with them to better himself, to hopefully return to form come next season.
