Amid the Vancouver Canucks‘ six-game losing streak, there haven’t been many individual positives to come from it. Of course, Finnish netminder Leevi Meriläinen has kept the Canucks in games; the top line of Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki has carried the team’s offence, but the biggest story may be the emergence of defenceman Elias Pettersson.

Starting the season on the Canucks’ third pair and hovering between 14-17 minutes per game, Pettersson has earned the trust of new head coach Manny Malhotra. Pair that with the early-season struggles from Zeev Buium, and Pettersson now finds himself on the top pairing with Filip Hronek. But how did we get here?

Well, we started to see something change in his game in Game 4 against the Vegas Golden Knights. In typical D-Petey fashion, he continued to play through contact and excelled doing so. He bought himself extra time in his defensive zone decision-making by using his frame to his advantage. Against a heavy Vegas team, Pettersson used his body to position himself between the forechecker and the puck and made smart decisions with the puck on his stick to clear the zone.

Not to mention this newfound goal-scoring he’s provided for the Canucks this season.

First, in Game 3 against the Calgary Flames on a four-on-four situation:

And then, a shorthanded goal off the rush in Game 7 against the New York Rangers:

And in the Canucks’ last game against the Florida Panthers, he finds the back of the net again in a four-on-four situation:

Did you notice anything about Pettersson’s goals? Well, it appears system-based. During training camp, Malhotra’s offensive zone system encourages defencemen to pinch up in the offensive zone, with forwards coming back to cover the point for them. Well, all three of Pettersson’s goals this season have come when he pinched down in the zone or when he joined the rush. And it’s clearly working for Pettersson.

So, he’s clearly passed the eye test so far, but his impact goes well beyond that. His counting stats and analytics are eye-popping.

Among the Canucks’ regular six defencemen, Pettersson leads the blueline in goals (three), trails Hronek by one shot on goal (10), is second behind Luke Schenn in hits (17), and averages the fewest giveaways per 60 (2.6).

Looking at a team-wide angle, Pettersson leads the Canucks in plus/minus rating at a plus-six. That’s three better than the next-best Canuck, Paul Cotter, at plus-three. Pettersson is one of just five Canucks regulars to be a plus player this season. He’s also tied for second on the team in blocked shots (14).

Analytically, his numbers get even more impressive.

Pettersson leads the Canucks regulars in Corsi For Percentage (55%), Fenwick Percentage (55.9%), Shots For Percentage (51.4%), Goals For Percentage (71.4%), Expected Goals For Percentage (51.5%), and Scoring Chances For Percentage (53.8%) at 5v5.

While those numbers may not mean much, to put them in perspective, Pettersson is the only Canucks regular on the good side of the 50% threshold in Corsi For, Shots For, Expected Goals For, and Scoring Chances For. This means that with Pettersson on the ice, the Canucks produce more than they allow. And he’s the only lineup regular who can say that.

And sure, it may be easy to say that he’s only had such good numbers because he played sheltered minutes on the third pair for most of the season. While that’s true, he still found ways to be a plus-two in Game 2 against the Edmonton Oilers when the Canucks allowed nine goals, a plus-one in Game 5 against the Carolina Hurricanes when they allowed seven goals, and a plus-two in Game 7 against the New York Rangers when they allowed six goals.

You can only defend who you’re out on the ice against, and he did his job in his minutes, considering he wasn’t on the ice for any of those 5v5 goals against in any of those three games where the Canucks allowed a collective 13 5v5 goals.

Well, he could get put in advantageous situations, like offensive zone starts, that would pump his numbers up, right? Wrong. Pettersson has done all of this while having the lowest offensive zone start percentage (27.7%) on the team, and actually leads the regulars in defensive zone starts (45.6%) at 5v5 this season. All the while averaging the fifth-fewest minutes per game of the six regular Canucks defenders.

These are incredible numbers given the Canucks’ situation: on a six-game losing skid, while leading the league in goals against (41). Yet, the 22-year-old defenceman leads the team in all important analytical metrics while not yet registering a point at 5v5 this season. Imagine how much better his numbers could be if he started converting some of the offence the Canucks create with him on the ice.

It’s been a special start to the season for Junior. Last season, it was Filip Hronek who excelled on the backend in Adam Foote’s system. This season, however, Elias Pettersson appears to be the Canucks defenceman thriving in his new situation under Manny Malhotra.