Canucks Willing To Listen On Elias Pettersson

As the Vancouver Canucks continue to ponder seismic, franchise-altering changes, significant attention has been paid to the possibility of the club moving on from top center Elias Pettersson. TSN’s Darren Dreger spoke on that possibility on today’s Insider Trading segment, saying “the Vancouver Canucks are listening and will listen to interest in Pettersson.” Dreger also noted that the Canucks firmly believe that Pettersson will thrive if he ends up receiving a new opportunity and fresh start elsewhere.

This current Canucks management group, led by veteran executive Jim Rutherford and GM Patrik Allvin, is not shy about making franchise-altering deals. They traded Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild earlier this season, for example. But it’s worth noting that Hughes’ trade was, on some levels, quite a bit more straightforward than a potential Pettersson trade.

Hughes is widely considered one of the game’s best players, and he had communicated, in no uncertain terms, that he was not prepared to commit to signing an extension in Vancouver. As a result, trading Hughes became a foregone conclusion for the franchise.The Canucks were able to shift their focus to figuring out the best way to maximize their return in a Hughes deal, rather than trying to decide whether or not to trade Hughes in the first place.

Pettersson’s situation is quite a bit more complicated. First and foremost, the full no-move clause on his $11.6MM AAV deal gives the player and his representatives (led by CAA’s Pat Brisson) full control over where he is dealt to. Pettersson needs to sign off on any trade before it can be completed. Dreger reported today that the Canucks have yet to communicate with Brisson regarding specific trade possibilities.

Pettersson could very well be receptive to a whole host of trade possibilities, so the more significant complicating factor is how exactly to properly value Pettersson in a trade. Hughes’ situation was, as mentioned, far more straightforward straightforward.

He is one of the NHL’s best players and a massive offer containing high-end young talent would be necessary to acquire him. But in Pettersson’s case, he has a few competing factors clouding where his exact trade value might land.

On one hand, Pettersson seems like a hugely valuable trade asset. He’s just 27 years old, and under contract through the 2031-32 season. He also has a 102-point season on his résumé, and managed 89 points as recently as 2023-24. He’s looked like an elite No. 1 center in some years, and at worst has played like a second-line pivot.

The center market is, at the moment, defined by its scarcity. When the Philadelphia Flyers signed Christian Dvorak recently to a five-year contract extension, GM Danny Briere cited the state of the center market, and the difficulty of acquiring centers, is part of the reason why he decided to push forward with the deal.

That environment could be one the Canucks are able to leverage to gain a significant return in any Pettersson deal. Put simply: centers in their prime who have scored at a point-per-game rate simply don’t become available very often. Even with his faults, Pettersson is likely to be a coveted trade asset.

There are some headwinds, of course, complicating Pettersson’s value on the market. Like Jack Eichel before him, Pettersson as a trade target carries a notable degree of risk. For Eichel, the risk largely lay in his uncertain medical situation. For Pettersson, the uncertainty and risk is largely of an on-ice variety. Pettersson hasn’t looked like the same player over the last season and a half, and his diminished level of production reflects that.

Despite scoring at a far lower rate than the best years of his career (he’s at 28 points in 38 games this season, and scored 45 points in 64 games last year), Pettersson’s salary still reflects his early-career promise. He’s set to make $11.6MM against the cap through 2031-32. While the cap is rising and it’s a less weighty commitment than it would have been a few years ago, $11.6MM is still an enormous cap hit. A team that is interested in acquiring Pettersson runs the risk of significant financial inefficiency down the middle should Pettersson be unable to return to his prior levels of play.

To be clear, the team control afforded by Pettersson’s contract also gives the acquiring team a significant amount of potential upside with a deal. They could get a top center they don’t have to worry about re-signing for the rest of the decade and beyond. That’s an extraordinarily valuable thing for an NHL team, something that can anchor a contending lineup. But that team control also brings with it a significant amount of risk in the event Pettersson isn’t able to excel in his new environment.

Regardless of those risk factors, it still seems overwhelmingly likely that a laundry list of teams will be interested in acquiring Pettersson. He’s simply too talented, and centers of his caliber are simply too rare. It also doesn’t hurt the Canucks’ efforts that teams have found success in similar deals in the past few years, most notably including the Flyers’ recent rehabilitation of Trevor Zegras or the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup win soon after acquiring Eichel.

But even though Pettersson will likely still command a fair amount of interest, his deal won’t be a simple one to complete. His situation in Vancouver is emerging as one of this season’s most intriguing storylines to watch.

Photos courtesy of Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images