Elias Pettersson scored the 499^th and 500^th points of his career on Tuesday night against the Anaheim Ducks, a mark that now stands as the seventh-most points anyone has ever achieved in a Vancouver Canucks jersey.

How much further Pettersson makes it up that chart is highly dependent on how the 2026 offseason goes. There are still plenty of pundits who claim that a Pettersson trade is possible, or perhaps even likely, this summer. We hold no claims to insider knowledge on this front, but anytime a rumour of this magnitude makes the rounds, we do like to dabble in the feasibility market.

That’s a market that is volatile when it comes to Pettersson. Anyone trading for him now is committing to an $11.6 million cap hit from now until 2032. They’re committing to ages 28 through 33 for him. And they’re committing to a player who is so far removed from their previous best, that it’s a legitimate question whether it is even possible for him to ever get back there, never mind probable.

There are some positive factors worth discussing, too. Say what you will about his overall performance vis-à-vis his career, but it’s also true that Pettersson is playing the best hockey that he has in two-and-a-half seasons right now. It’s also true that he’s managed at least a minuscule comeback of sorts amid an absolutely disastrous Canucks season in which the team has really collapsed around itself.

Pettersson also remains a centre, and that is a position of great scarcity in the NHL, especially when we talk about centres available for trade.

We can’t say that there will be an extensive, robust, or even an incredibly enthusiastic market for Pettersson’s services this summer. But there should still be enough of a market to have several teams kick the tires, and maybe even enough for a handful of them to make what the Canucks consider to be legitimate offers.

If that comes to pass, we think these teams are the most likely to get involved in said tire-kicking:

This is the alphabetical place to start, but it’s also the logical one, because we know for a near-fact that the Hurricanes have been in pursuit of Pettersson before. Word is that a Pettersson-for-Necas swap nearly occurred a couple of seasons ago, and there have been inconsistent rumours ever since of Carolina’s sustained interest.

The Hurricanes look just as needy at centre as they were before. Sebastian Aho is a star, but Logan Stankoven might be a better fit as a top-six wing in the long-term than as a true 2C. Getting Pettersson in there would make for an incredibly strong sextet up top, with all of Aho, Stankoven, Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, and Jackson Blake there to surround and support Pettersson. For his part, Pettersson would aim to take a little offensive pressure off Aho from above and a little defensive pressure off the aging Jordan Staal from below. The fit is there.

Carolina also has a ridiculous amount of cap space for a contending team, and are heading into this season with more than $13 million available. They are perhaps the only quality team out there that could take on Pettersson’s cap hit without blinking.

We started hearing some heavy rumours about the Red Wings and Pettersson around the Trade Deadline, but most of them suggested that an offseason transaction was far more likely. But how likely?

The Red Wings’ rebuild has enjoyed some real success this year, but it is also displaying a bit of an uneven kilter. The Wings are, appropriately enough, well-stocked on the wings. They’ve got an excellent blueline developing, and they’ve got multiple future and current options in the crease. Their big gap seems to be down the middle, where they’ve got Dylan Larkin in place, but not much after him. Neither of Marco Kasper nor Nate Danielson have grown into that 2C role yet, and there’s a bit of a difficulty in trying to bridge the gap between Larkins’ remaining prime and their coming into their own.

Enter: Pettersson.

If we’re talking about a franchise where someone like Pettersson could thrive, it’s probably Detroit, the only franchise out there with a prouder tradition of Swedish excellence than Vancouver. The presence of Larkin would take an awful lot of pressure off Pettersson’s performance, too, allowing him some time to focus on rediscovering his game.

Contract-wise, the Red Wings have done well in getting their big pieces – namely Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond – signed to long-term extensions early that are already well into surplus-value territory. That efficient spending allows them to perhaps overspend a little elsewhere, and to care less if Pettersson never quite lives up to his cap hit again.

There was enough buzz about the Kings and Pettersson near the deadline that we wrote about it, and the general conclusion was that Pettersson represented a fine enough option to replace the retiring Anze Kopitar with a younger two-way centre so as to bridge the gap between their old core and their upcoming youth. With the Kings having acquired and committed to two more years of Artemi Panarin at the actual deadline, we think that line of thinking might continue.

Sliding Pettersson into Kopitar’s vacancy would, at the very least, prevent Quinton Byfield from having to step up into dedicated 1C duties right away, a responsibility he is plainly not ready for. One might argue that neither is Pettersson anymore, but then maybe the two would form a platoon of sorts, like a 1A/1B goalie situation.

The Kings are going into next year with almost $20 million in cap space available, even after that Panarin extension. They can afford Pettersson, and they pretty much have to spend at least some of that money on a centre, or else they’re going to go into next season with a single top-six centre on their roster. That’s not workable for a team that clearly still has postseason aspirations. 

This one is a little more out there. A couple of whispers emerged about the Canucks and Islanders at the deadline, but they seemed to be more focused on Conor Garland than anyone else. Obviously, that did not come to pass, but perhaps the discussions got as far as including Pettersson, and perhaps they will be revisited.

We don’t hate the idea of putting Pettersson back into the vicinity of Bo Horvat, the leader who seemed to have the most positive impact on him in the past. And with Mathew Barzal transitioning more and more to the wing as time moves on, Horvat probably needs some backup at centre. The Islanders brought in Brayden Schenn at the deadline, but his days of top-six production are likely behind him. If the Islanders want more offensive oomph to work with young wingers like Emil Heineman and Calum Ritchie, they’re probably going to have to trade for it. Giving franchise cornerstone Matthew Schaefer more options up front is also a goal.

Speaking of Schaefer, his unexpected arrival via draft lottery luck last year has really propelled this Islanders group forward. Their time to compete is a lot more present-day than many thought it would be all of a sudden, and doing something with the opportunity will require some risks. Taking on Pettersson might be just one such risk.

This one we are less sure about. Several other pundits have mentioned the potential connection between Pettersson and Philadelphia, but it’s hard to see that coming to pass at all until the Flyers move on from Rick Tocchet. It’s speculation on our part, but we imagine neither Pettersson nor Tocchet is particularly eager to work with the other again anytime soon.

If Tocchet were to be let go, though – presumably for his inability to connect with young phenom Matvei Michkov – then maybe something starts making sense. The Flyers have a great collection of mid-to-young wingers like Michkov, Travis Konecny, and the incoming Porter Martone, but a fairly patchwork collection of centres that includes an aging Sean Couturier and a recently-extended Christian Dvorak.

There is a need for additional talent, more than anything, at centre. And while he may not show it off as often anymore, Pettersson is still clearly in possession of some talent. With the Flyers abundant in both quality prospects and cap space (a whopping $40 million heading into next year), there is an opportunity for the Flyers to accelerate their competitiveness with a few key trades, and the potential for those trades to be expensive ones.

This one shouldn’t make much sense, and yet it does, at least a little. The Penguins are plainly trying to get the most out of Sidney Crosby’s last seasons while also attempting to lay down some foundation for what comes after. It’s not easy work. But Kyle Dubas has done an admirable job of adding a next generation of Penguins to learn from Crosby and Co. along the way, like Ben Kindel, Yegor Chinakhov, and Rutger McGroarty. It’s enough to say that the Penguins won’t be starting from scratch post-Crosby.

Pettersson, then, represents a fairly unique opportunity. In the present day, he comes in and helps the Penguins be as competitive as possible for the next few years. And maybe that’s quite competitive, because if we were to pick out a leader capable of sparking a real comeback in Pettersson, who better than Crosby, one of the greatest leaders this sport has ever seen? Look at the impact Crosby has had on Erik Karlsson for some evidence of this possibility.

Then, after Crosby retires, Pettersson could represent a bridge piece between the old and new generations, so as not to slip entirely back into obscurity.

The continued ties between the Penguins and Canucks’ front offices make this all the more intriguing.

As we wrap up here, it occurs to us that there are no sure-things here, and that’s to be expected. Even if we can get to the point where we might understand these teams’ interest in Pettersson, there would obviously still need to be a lot of internal dialogue and decision-making before any of them turned that interest into a serious pursuit.

With that in mind, look forward to a follow-up piece on this article, entitled something along the lines of “How the various suitors will internally convince themselves to trade for Elias Pettersson.” That one will be a lot more speculative, by nature, but also a bit more fun.