When the Vancouver Canucks acquired Marcus Pettersson along with Drew O’Connor last week, it came with an understanding that the Canucks were going to move quickly to get Pettersson signed.

A repeat of last season — when the team spent valuable assets to acquire both Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm, only for both players to walk in free agency — would have been a disaster.

The first-round pick the Canucks got back in the JT Miller trade was burning a hole in their pocket so much that they decided to flip the pick to the Penguins within hours of the Miller trade. Thankfully, not only did the Canucks get two players they really wanted in the form of Pettersson and O’Connor, they also got rid of multiple years of bad money in the form of Vincent Desharnais and Danton Heinen. Now, they themselves signed those contracts just a few months ago, but that’s beside the point.

Getting Pettersson signed became an immediate priority for the team, and on Friday night, Canucks GM Patrik Allvin announced the signing of Pettersson to a six-year extension at $5.5 million annually.

That contract didn’t seem to catch anyone off guard, with most fans reacting positively to the contract. $5.5 million for Pettersson — a legitimate top four option who immediately becomes the Canucks’ third-best defenceman — is more than fair in today’s current salary cap climate.

But what if we told you it was about to look even better?

On Friday (the same day as the Canucks’ trades), the NHL and NHLPA announced increased salary cap figures for the next three seasons. They are as follows:

Since this is an extension, Pettersson’s $5.5 million cap hit won’t kick in until 2025-26. For the rest of this season, he’ll take up $4.025 million on the Canucks’ books. In other terms, 4.6% of the Canucks’ total player payroll with a current salary cap of $88 million.

In year one of the deal, when the cap is at $95.5 million instead of $88 million, Pettersson’s percentage of the Canucks’ cap jumps to 5.76%. A bit more sizeable, but still not bad — and still cheaper than the going rate for 3/4 defencemen, who usually come in closer or above 6%.

When that upper cap limit number rises to $104 million in 2026-27, Pettersson’s percentage of the cap will go down to 5.28%. In year three, with a salary cap of $113.5 million, Pettersson’s $5.5 million cap hit will take up just 4.87% of the Canucks’ payroll. And of course, he still has three seasons to go after that, and who knows how much higher the salary cap could get?

To put it into perspective, by year three of this deal, Pettersson’s cap hit will equate to roughly $4.29 million using today’s salary cap.

Given that he’ll still be in his early 30s at that time, there’s reason to believe that Pettersson’s game won’t have declined to the point that he’s anything other than a great number three defenceman for the Canucks.

Check out the latest video edition of Instant Reaction below, where I gave my initial thoughts on the extension!