Elias Pettersson is essentially the most scrutinized man in Vancouver, if not all the NHL.
Sadly for the Vancouver Canucks‘ extremely compensated ahead, he has not executed sufficient to silence the skeptics.
Just lately, there was his uninspiring performance for Sweden on the 4 Nations Face-Off adopted by an unforced error when he brushed off his scoring slump by saying, “It’s extra annoying coping with the media.” (The rift with J.T. Miller additionally nonetheless hangs over Pettersson’s head even after the Canucks traded Miller to the New York Rangers on the finish of January.)
It feels just like the Canucks have reached a important inflection level with Pettersson, who has one aim in his previous 20 video games and is on tempo for 49 factors.
The no-movement clause in Pettersson’s $11.6 million-per-year contract takes impact July 1, and it’s truthful to surprise if he’ll ever return to the extent he reached in 2022-23.
Essentially the most pointed criticism of Pettersson got here from Canucks coach Rick Tocchet, who mentioned this to Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre final week: “I feel he’s ready for one thing. I don’t know if it’s a insecurity in his shot, however as quickly as he has room, he’s acquired to take it and … blast it. I’d moderately him simply rip a puck proper now.”
Tocchet is true about Pettersson’s tentativeness. Pettersson is firing the puck at a notably decrease fee (3.85 per sport) in comparison with two seasons in the past when he averaged practically six shot makes an attempt per sport en path to scoring 39 targets.
Tocchet advised MacIntyre that Pettersson “can’t double-clutch (with the puck),” pointing to the top of the Canucks’ 2-1 loss to the Utah Hockey Membership final Sunday. Within the waning moments of regulation, Pettersson acquired a go from Filip Chytil exterior the slot and held the puck for a number of seconds earlier than releasing a shot that didn’t attain the online.
That used to not be an issue for Pettersson. He completed eleventh within the league in one-timers taken two years in the past, averaging 1.7 per sport. Round 29 per cent of his complete shot makes an attempt in 2022-23 had been one-timers. That determine has been sliced in half this season (14.4 per cent). Pettersson’s 30 one-timers (0.56 per sport) rank tied for 181st. On prime of that, he has hit the online on solely 12 of them (40 per cent).
On common this season, Pettersson has had the puck on his stick for two.5 seconds earlier than taking pictures — up from 1.5 seconds in 2022-23. (It was 1.8 seconds final season.)
There’s an all-encompassing metric that exhibits how a lot Pettersson’s total offensive influence has diminished over the previous couple of years: offence-generating performs (OGP). They embrace passes and carries to the slot, passes for one-timers, exterior photographs that generate rebounds and different occasions that sometimes result in targets and assists.
When Pettersson recorded 102 factors in 2022-23, he averaged 10.3 offence-generating performs. That ranked seventeenth within the league per sport, proper behind Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and straight forward of New Jersey’s Nico Hischier. This season, Pettersson is 83rd in that class at 7.43 OGP per sport.
In equity to Pettersson, Quinn Hughes does a lot of the heavy lifting relating to driving the play. General, nevertheless, Pettersson is way much less concerned within the offence, which must be of main concern to the Canucks.
Pettersson, to his credit score, is without doubt one of the prime defensive forwards within the league, rating tied for fifth on the place in blocked passes and 14th in blocked photographs. However it can take greater than that for him to justify his wage.
This can be a time of upheaval in Vancouver. Miller is gone, and Brock Boeser is also on his way out of British Columbia, maybe as quickly as this week with the commerce deadline looming Friday. Regardless of all of the drama, the Canucks are squarely within the race for a wild-card spot within the Western Convention.
These are the moments when leaders are purported to rise to the event. The Canucks are nonetheless ready for Pettersson to take action.
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