We’ve heard it from Jim Rutherford, Patrik Allvin, Rick Tocchet, and Adam Foote. Basically, everyone of significance within the Vancouver Canucks organization has used the word “preparation” when discussing Elias Pettersson’s struggles over the last two years.

First it began with Pettersson’s proclamation that knee tendinitis prevented him from preparing for the 2024-25 season properly. The organization’s talking heads never really seemed to buy that, and since then, Pettersson’s preparation has been a talking point for a growing list of individuals.

Today, that list added three names to it: Co-President of Hockey Operations Daniel Sedin, along with General Manager Ryan Johnson.

“Here’s my initial thought on Elias,” began Johnson. “I want to wipe away all the expectations and that may exist in him, just like the rest of our hockey club. Not just our players, but our staff — we’re asking them to come September the most prepared that they could be. And for our players, that’s going to be physically and mentally ready to make a decision. To jump to any conclusion… no, I’m looking forward to talking to him and just letting him know that that’s what’s important to me out of the gates. And like I just said, I’ll reiterate again, I’m going to challenge these guys to be as good as teammates that they can for each other. And if we commit to those little things, everybody’s going to be better for it, him included.”

Daniel Sedin drew on he and Henrik’s own experience as players when discussing Pettersson’s struggles.

“We’ve been through this as players, exactly what he’s been through,” said Daniel, who, along with his brother, struggled to build off of solid rookie campaigns for their first few seasons in the NHL. “You’re going to have some really good seasons, you’re going to have some tougher seasons. What we found after a long career looking back is that the best seasons we had, we were well prepared.

“That is everything you can control. It’s how hard you work in the summer, [you’re] mentally ready to go when training camp hits. So I think that’s the one message to him, is preparation. And like I said, we had some bad seasons too, and those times, we maybe didn’t prepare the way we should have.”

Pettersson was clearly frustrated after another season in which he struggled to produce points, and where on many nights, he looked like a passenger rather than a play-driving top-line centre the Canucks are paying $11.8 million yearly to. His fall off has come with many theories from fans, but the one thing anyone around the Canucks seems to agree on regarding this subject is that Pettersson needs to put himself in a better position to succeed by putting in the work off the ice.