Elias Pettersson Wants His Extension to be Offseason Business

September 5th, 2023

Zach Mason

In what can be seen as the latest in a long line of examples of people ‘betting on themselves’ in contract years, Canucks star Elias Pettersson sat down with Elliotte Friedman in Stockholm. Pettersson caught the eye of many Canucks supporters by stating he is in no rush to sign a contract extension with the Vancouver Canucks, preferring to have that out of his mind during the 2023/24 season. 

Per his agent, Pat Brisson, the reason for this is that he “wants to focus on the Vancouver Canucks being better” in this upcoming season. No doubt having seen that even with a brilliant individual season (102 points and a Selke trophy nomination), team accolades do not follow with the same ease, his only playoff appearances coming in the 2020 Edmonton Bubble. 

Whilst there is some cause for concern with this news, it is important to remember that the Swede will be a Restricted Free Agent (RFA) next offseason. This means (in the worst-case scenario), that Vancouver will have either the opportunity to match any offers sent to the Swede or receive compensation for the loss of Pettersson (potentially up to 4 1st-round picks). In addition, it appears that nobody in the front office or Pettersson’s representation, per Rick Dhaliwal, expected a deal to be done this offseason, so it seems both sides want a deal to be ironed out in the next offseason, about a year from now. 

According to later reports by Friedman, the regular season success of the Canucks seems to be the deciding factor in whether or not Pettersson resigns in Vancouver, meaning that there is fire under the seat(s) of Rutherford, Allvin and Tocchet. If the Canucks repeat the mediocrity they’ve seemed to find all too familiar since the beginning of the Jim Benning era, then they will seemingly need a drastic bit of luck to keep one of the best players on the planet. 

The reason those three are on the hot seat should be obvious, they had a clear path to keeping their star player, a top 10-15 player  in the league, and a future Selke trophy winner in a position that is otherwise lacking talent in the organization, and failed. 

Let’s look into this future for a moment, to see what happens if Pettersson was to leave Vancouver. First of all, it would probably lead to a fire sale for the rest of the team, Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko included, for (ideally) a collection of draft picks. These draft picks would be used to rebuild the team from the ground up, possibly under new management. The current management, assuming a rebuild, would be on very thin ice with the Aquilinis due to comments being made about where they see the team, believing it to be no more than two to three pieces away from Stanley Cup contention.

So in short, the 2023/24 season can have very drastic implications for the rest of the decade for hockey in Vancouver. If the team is very good, then it is highly likely Petterson will stay. If the team misses the playoffs or is otherwise mediocre, then that could mean a big reshuffling, from players to backroom personnel.