The Canucks will get some much-welcomed help down the middle tonight against San Jose. Speaking with reporters after practice today (Twitter link), center Elias Pettersson confirmed that he will make his return to the lineup.
Pettersson, who has missed the last eight games with an upper-body injury, is currently on injured reserve. However, Vancouver has an open roster spot available so they won’t need to make any moves to bring their top pivot back onto the roster.
The initial hope was that Pettersson wouldn’t be out that long but instead, he wound up missing three weeks with the injury, one that was causing a lot of pain when shooting the puck. Despite missing their top center, Vancouver wound up winning five of the eight games he missed, including four of their last five following the Quinn Hughes trade.
In the second season of an eight-year, $92.8MM deal, Pettersson hasn’t been able to live up to the price tag in terms of his production. While he’s on pace to put up more points than the 45 he did in 64 games last season, the 27-year-old has eight goals and 14 assists through 28 games this season. He’s averaging a career-high 20:37 per game of ice time while taking a regular turn on both special teams units.
While Vancouver GM Patrik Allvin spoke about entering a hybrid rebuilding phase, their recent run in the standings has them only six points out of a playoff spot. Getting Pettersson back should only help them so if the team continues its recent hot streak, they may not wind up being as much of a seller as initially thought.
Sarcasm invoked here –
Oh boy, here comes the savior of our season. The expensive boy wonder that’s disappeared and been such a cohesive presence since he signed the contract extension and enjoyed his ‘all star’ experience.
True opinion – if his contract wasn’t bloated he might be a trade asset yet currently he’s been nothing but a liability relative to his cost!
It seemed, at that moment, that EP40 had turned the corner and might come back to his own good ol’ days when he and Boeser out-dueled O’Reilly and Skjei in OT back in November. Sadly, I think @J O. 2 is right about Pettersson.