There is probably no other player in the Vancouver Canucks organization with more question marks attached to them heading into the 2026-27 than Elias Pettersson. In fact, he’s got so many question marks attached to him, even Batman has started to get suspicious.

Will be even still be here in October? What could the Canucks get back for him? Is salary retention a valid option? If he stays, can he get back to 70 points? 80 points? 100? Is he still a 1C? Does he still want to be? How much more inflation before $11.6 million is average 2C money?

Well, we figured, what’s one more question for the pile?

Any roster mock-up for the 2026-27 Canucks that includes Pettersson has typically placed him in one of two top-six centre roles. Which makes sense: he’s been playing exclusively there for some time now.

But Pettersson does have some NHL experience on the wing, or at least as what we might call a hybrid-winger. Back in the halcyon days of the Lotto Line, Pettersson frequently played on JT Miller’s flank. One wonders whether the Canucks have considered re-trying Pettersson in a similar role as they continue to attempt to reinvigorate his career.

There’s not much mystery why this hasn’t happened so far. Since Miller was shipped out of town, the Canucks have usually been low on other centre candidates. They got Filip Chytil back in that trade, but he soon exited the lineup with injury and hasn’t been a consistent option. Beyond him, it’s been mostly admirable fill-ins like Pius Suter, Teddy Blueger, Max Sasson, Aatu Räty, and even the 18-year-old Braeden Cootes. All fine players in their own right, but no one who is going to displace Pettersson from the top six at this stage in their careers. In many ways, Pettersson has been a top-six centre in Vancouver by default since Miller left.

The Canucks finally brought in another true top-six centre in Marco Rossi, acquired via the Quinn Hughes trade. But one centre isn’t enough to displace Pettersson from that top six, and Rossi spent much of the rest of the season fighting through injury anyway.

That’s the situation as it’s been thus far. But could it be changing enough, as of the pending 2026-27 season, for Pettersson to perhaps try out another wing deployment?

Currently, at centre, the Canucks have a depth chart of approximately Pettersson, Rossi, Räty, and then there’s some ambiguity. Some have recent KHL signing Ilya Safonov next in line, while others would put Cootes, now 19, there. Ty Mueller, at 23, is another legitimate option to crack the opening night roster.

Down the road, the Canucks have drafted a number of even younger centres, including third overall Caleb Malhotra and Brooks Rogowski, and one has to think that this newest crop is the real threat to push Pettersson out of his spot. But we’re only talking about the 2026-27 campaign in this article, and the only one who really has that potential in the present moment is Cootes.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Cootes has an even more impressive Training Camp showing in 2026 than he did in 2025. It’s certainly possible – Cootes just keeps beating out expectations. Let’s say he plays well enough to put himself head and shoulders above other centre candidates and really forces his way onto the team.

Where would the Canucks want to deploy him? With the option of sending Cootes down to Abbotsford for a top-line AHL gig on the table, the Canucks wouldn’t just want Cootes on their NHL roster; they’d want him there with a purpose.

It might seem a bit wasteful or counterproductive to take a teenager with top-six potential and have them skate exclusively in the bottom six. It’d also be questionable development to play them out of position. If Cootes is going to be a Canuck from the jump in 2026-27, that should probably mean he plays centre in the top six.

Now, the Canucks probably have a vested interest in keeping Rossi in a top-six centre job. For one, they still need to figure out his overall role in the rebuild moving forward. For another, if he’s not going to be a part of the rebuild, he makes for an excellent trade chip, and a big part of cashing in on that chip would be continuing to prove that Rossi can thrive in a top-six role.

But Pettersson? It feels like Pettersson could shift.

One could even imagine Pettersson sliding directly over to Cootes’ wing, playing a role somewhat similar to the one he played on the Lotto Line all those years ago, while at the same time providing some truly excellent insulation for his inexperienced centreman.

Pettersson would obviously provide some quality defensive coverage and perhaps make up for any natural shortcomings in his game that Cootes has for the time being. He was often a bit of an extra defensive conscience for Miller when on his wing. As a leftie, he could help take faceoffs on the off-side for the right-handed Cootes. And we know Pettersson can shoot from the wings because that’s pretty much exclusively what he does on the power play these days.

In terms of talent, he might also reasonably offer more as a winger than anyone else the Canucks could put with Cootes in this particular season.

One could imagine a unit of Pettersson-Cootes-DeBrusk, with Cootes being buoyed by two fairly productive veterans. Or, if Jake DeBrusk is traded, maybe someone sturdier like Drew O’Connor or Linus Karlsson in that spot. That would allow the Canucks to keep that Öhgren-Rossi-Boeser line together as their other top-six option.

With Cootes’ two-way reputation, he’s ideally going to be taking on difficult matchups eventually. Giving him a defensively sound linemate like Pettersson in Season One might be a fine way to start easing him into those matchups from the get-go.

There’s also some things to like for Pettersson in this arrangement, too. He’s struggled to get his game back on track, and this would constitute a pretty sharp shift. It could be the shock to the system he needs, or the fresh perspective, or the (limited) change of scenery. If anything, it could be a way to get the offence flowing again, and to have the production follow in kind.

One wonders, naturally, whether moving Pettersson away from centre would hurt his long-term trade value, with centres typically being more valued than wingers. But, for one, Pettersson wouldn’t lose the ability to play centre while playing a season or two on the wing.

And, for another, maybe this is a whole new avenue to open up on the trade front. Really, if you think about it, for a contending team to acquire Pettersson and trust him in one of their top-six centre roles would require a lot of trust right now. But if he can show capability as a top-six winger, too, that’s a role with a whole lot less responsibility, and it might be easier to convince more serious teams to trade for this newer, more versatile version.

We realize we’re deep into conditional speculation here, and that this idea is, admittedly, a long shot. But if Cootes were to make the team outright again, this option should remain on the table, both for the advancement of Cootes’ development and, perhaps, the restoration of Pettersson’s.

Really, what have they got to lose with this player at this point?