Elias Pettersson is (quietly) dominating the playoffs

In a year where nothing has gone as expected, this author still didn’t expect to ever write an article about how Elias Pettersson’s MVP-quality play in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs was being overshadowed by the Motte’s, Markstrom’s, and Virtanen’s of the world.

And yet, here we are.

Other Canucks rightfully earned headlines and spotlights for their performances in Game Five against the St. Louis Blues. Tyler Motte went sicko mode and scored two goals, including one that would have been considered the best of the season if not for the existence of Bo Horvat. Jacob Markstrom made a game-saving stop at the most crucial moment imaginable, and then he did it four more times in quick succession. Jake Virtanen, whom fans had been imploring to do “something” in the postseason, did a lot of things, including notching the tying goal that turned the whole game around.

Pettersson, meanwhile, picked up two assists, and secondary assists at that.

In doing so, he moved into a tie with Nazem Kadri for third in playoff scoring with 11 points, just two points behind Nathan MacKinnon and one behind Sebastian Aho.

The trio of MacKinnon, Aho, and Kadri, it should be mentioned, are all done with the first round — MacKinnon and Kadri are moving on to the second round, and Aho and the Hurricanes are heading home — which means that Pettersson could easily end the first round as the league’s leading scorer.

And, as is almost always the case with Pettersson, he’s performing even better than those surface stats would indicate.

Anyone who knows hockey will tell you that, no matter how much success one has in the regular season, the playoffs are a different kettle of fish.

That’s as true for Pettersson as it is for anyone else. But whereas most top-flight NHL scorers see their scoring pace dip under the tighter checking and greater physicality of the postseason, it’s the opposite when it comes to Pettersson.

Pettersson seems to thrive in a playoff atmosphere and, against the norm, his production hasn’t just stayed steady — it’s on the rise.

In the 2019/20 regular season, Pettersson notched 27 goals 66 points in 68 games. If he’d played an entire 82-game season, that puts him on pace for 33 goals and 80 points.

Thus far in the 2020 Playoffs, he’s got four goals and 11 points in nine games. If that pace were to be spread out over 82 games, Pettersson would be on his way to a 36-goal, 100-point season. That would have put him behind only Leon Draisaitl in the regular season scoring race this year.

Of course, one might argue that nine games is a small sample size to be extrapolating too much excitement from, and they’d be right. Fortunately, this isn’t the first time Pettersson has done something like this.

In his Draft+1 season, Pettersson set the SHL record for under-20 scoring with 56 points in 44 games, a point-per-game average of 1.23. But then he hit another gear in the playoffs and racked up 19 points in 13 games for an average of 1.47, en route to a championship and honours as the postseason MVP.

In other words, this sort of thing appears to be a habit for the 21-year-old superstar.

It’s important to contextualize Pettersson’s scoring bump by mentioning who he’s putting up all those points against.

Craig Berube and the Blues have been a little mercurial in their matchups this series, but Pettersson has still had to do battle with either a perennial Norris contender or a perennial Selke contender on most of his shifts — and it hasn’t slowed him down one bit.

Game One saw Pettersson play the bulk of his even-strength minutes against both Alex Pietrangelo and Ryan O’Reilly. He scored a single goal.

Games Two and Three had the Blues backing off the Pietrangelo matchup a bit, but they still put O’Reilly out there for the vast majority of Pettersson’s 5v5 shifts. Pettersson responded with a goal and an assist in each game, though three of those points came on the powerplay.

For Game Four, the Blues moved away from their preferred matchups entirely, splitting Pettersson-guarding duties evenly between Brayden Schenn, Tyler Bozak, and their entire defence corps. Somehow, the result was Pettersson’s only pointless game of the series thus far.

And then, for Game Five, Pietrangelo got back on the case — and Pettersson picked up another two points, both at even-strength.

The fact that Pietrangelo and O’Reilly, who proved capable of shutting down just about everyone on the way to the 2019 Stanley Cup, can’t even keep Pettersson down to his regular season scoring pace says a lot.

A pattern is starting to emerge. When the going gets tough — or, at the very least, seems like it should be getting tough — Elias Pettersson gets going.

Pettersson played on three different forward lines in Game Five, with the bulk of his 5v5 minutes coming alongside either JT Miller and Jake Virtanen or Tanner Pearson and Loui Eriksson — and it didn’t make a difference.

Actually, to be more accurate, it didn’t make a difference to Pettersson, but it made a huge difference to those players lucky enough to line up with him.

With Pettersson in Game Five, the duo of Pearson and Eriksson nearly doubled their possession rates compared to their time with Bo Horvat — to the tune of 60% to 33.33%.

But to see the true measure of how much Pettersson’s current level of play is elevating that of his teammates, look no further than Jake Virtanen.

Through the first four games of the series, Virtanen was abysmal by any metric. His Corsi rate, Expected Goals rate, and Scoring Chances rate were all hovering around 40%, and there were many calls for him to be removed from the lineup in place of Adam Gaudette.

Then, partway through Game Five, Travis Green put Virtanen on Pettersson’s right wing, and all of a sudden Virtanen looked like a top-six forward.

After playing just over five even-strength minutes with Pettersson and Miller, Virtanen picked up a goal and an assist, and now he has positive metrics across the board. In fact, Virtanen’s High-Danger Scoring Chance percentage now sits at 55.56%, highest among forwards on the team.

Such is the power of Pettersson.

If Elias Pettersson wasn’t considered a true elite talent in the NHL before this postseason, he has to be now.

And his scoring rate is a big part of that, but it’s far from the full picture.

There’s not a single significant statistical category in which Pettersson is not in the top-three for the Canucks right now.

Of particular note is his consistent ability to control scoring chances at 5v5 despite, as was previously mentioned, playing the bulk of his minutes against the Blues’ most potent offensive players.

Just imagine what he’ll be able to do once the powerplay starts clicking again.

Sure, Pettersson has garnered some headlines throughout this postseason, but more of them have been aimed at his being targeted by opponents, as opposed to how incredibly well he’s performed despite all that extra attention.

It’s entirely possible that, having blown the doors off expectations his entire career, we’ve all come to take Pettersson’s continued ascension for granted.

But if that’s the case, Canucks fans owe it to themselves to take another look at just how dominant Pettersson has been since the NHL resumed play — because a player this special deserves to be fully appreciated.