Elias Pettersson is back!
That’s the typical sentiment on social media when the Vancouver Canucks’ franchise forward makes even one play on the ice that evokes the player he used to be.
There are some signs that Pettersson is on the upswing after struggling through the first three quarters of the season. He’s on a four-game scoring streak and has four goals and seven points in his last six games, including a clutch performance against the Calgary Flames where he also scored in the shootout.
Pettersson is scoring again but not quite at his peak pace
This upswing happened to come after Pettersson took accountability for his poor performance in his best media availability of the season. He talked the talk and then went out and walked the walk.
“I mean, I’ll just be honest: I haven’t been the way I want to be this year,” said Pettersson two weeks ago. “I haven’t played to the expectations I have on myself or the franchise has on me, I’ll be the first one to tell you. But that’s in the past. I just want to take these last 22 games — plus more, hopefully — and play my best hockey.”
But is Pettersson truly back?
To figure that out, we must first decide exactly what “back” means for Pettersson. Generally speaking, Canucks fans are hoping that Pettersson can get back to the player he was in the 2022-23 season, when he led the Canucks in scoring with 102 points while averaging over 20 minutes per game and tilting the ice in those tough minutes.
That’s the same Pettersson that fans saw in the first half of the 2023-24 season. He had 25 goals and 57 points through the first 42 games of that season, good for sixth in the NHL in scoring and on pace for 49 goals and 111 points, before his game fell off a cliff, coinciding with his self-reported knee issues, which he said also affected his off-season training prior to this season.
Pettersson’s seven points in his last six games is a 96-point pace over a full season, which is at least approaching the 102 points from 2022-23 or his 111-point pace from the first half of 2023-24. It’s fair to say, however, that he’ll need to sustain that pace over a larger sample of games — perhaps the final 15 games of the season as the Canucks push for the playoffs — before it feels like anything more than a flash in the pan.
Still, there’s reason to believe that these games mark a turning point for Pettersson.
“He’s still the same guy,” said Rick Tocchet of Pettersson on Saturday. “He’s a great kid. I think now he’s having a little bit more fun…I don’t think he has the world on his shoulders right now. He’s just enjoying this run.”
Pettersson's underlying numbers still need some work
Beyond the points, however, Pettersson at his best tilted the ice significantly in the Canucks’ favour even when he wasn’t putting the puck in the net.
In the 2022-23 season, Pettersson led the Canucks at 5-on-5 with a 53.7% expected goals percentage (xGF%), a statistic that combines shot quantity and shot quality. The Canucks regularly out-shot and out-chanced their opposition when Pettersson was on the ice at 5-on-5.
This season, Pettersson hasn’t had the same impact. His xGF% is still above 50% but only just at 50.3%, which ranks 13th on the Canucks. His corsi percentage (CF%) is below 50% for the first time in his career apart from the injury-shortened 2020-21 season.
None of that is overly surprising. Canucks fans know that Pettersson hasn’t been good this season, though his still positive expected goals is at least a reflection of his continued commitment on the defensive side of the puck. The question is whether he’s shown any improvement on that end even as the points have started to come.
The answer is…well, maybe.
Here are Pettersson’s underlying numbers — specifically, corsi percentage and expected goal percentage — as a 10-game rolling average this season.
What might be surprising is that Pettersson’s underlying numbers early in the season were quite good.
I’ve marked a few key dates on the chart, the first being November 19 when J.T. Miller went on his 10-game leave of absence. Pettersson had 15 points in those 10 games and some fans point to Miller’s absence as the reason, but the truth was that Pettersson’s game had been trending upward for a while, with great underlying numbers and six points in five games before Miller left.
The second key date is December 23, when Pettersson got injured and missed three weeks. He had been struggling leading up to that date and seemed to have trouble getting back up to speed when he returned from injury, as his numbers in January and February are just plain ugly.
Then there’s March 5, the game after “the interview” and the turnaround in his play the last to weeks. Did he actually turn things around?
While Pettersson’s xGF% has improved significantly, he’s still been under 50% overall in his corsi percentage.
In other words, Pettersson’s inching closer to being back but he’s not quite there yet. He's not controlling possession the way he has in the past when he's been at his best.
But he’s put himself in a good position to be fully back in the coming weeks.
