Are they really going to trade him? Can they fix his skating?
He’s scoreless in eight games. He last scored a goal Jan. 21.
There’s no jump in his stride. He’s not shooting.
It’s just perplexing to watch.
Are the Canucks really going to have to just trade him?!
They almost did two weeks ago, to Carolina — and they’d have secured a pretty good return in Martin Nečas.
So at least there’s reason to think they could bring in a useful top-line player in a trade.
But they still won’t be the Pettersson of 2022-23 who did what he wanted on the ice.
And that, we must remember, is the player that Canucks brass still believes is there, that he can find his way back to that player.
The terrifying thing about abandoning Pettersson, and that’s what a trade would entail, is the what-if: what if he finds his game again? There’s just no way to match that player.
Nečas would have been a pretty decent replacement, but the fact Pettersson remains such an impactful defensive player too … a player who is worthy of Selke consideration when he’s on his game, is problematic.
But the Canucks aren’t paying Pettersson to be Guy Carbonneau: they’re paying him to be something akin to Sasha Barkov.
Barkov he ain’t been, though.
Who is the right fit?
Filip Chytil has been a fine addition so far. His speed is obvious. That brings a different dynamic to a lineup that was too homogeneous in style.
Pettersson has those talents, but beyond him not shooting, he’s not passing either. He’s not playing with any pace, which is surely frustrating whoever his linemates has been.
It’s just baffling to watch. Here’s a guy who won the hardest-shot competition at the All Star Game just two years ago. It’s not just that he’s not shooting, it’s everything else. He used to create all kinds of space and opportunity for his linemates: he’s not even doing that.
Finding space
I was speaking with ex-Canuck Frankie Corrado earlier this week on Sekeres and Price and I asked him about how teams are defending Pettersson and he had some very interesting insights:
Pettersson has no get-away speed right now, Corrado noted. “Defencemen, they can all skate,” he said. “There’s no ‘beware of playing him too tight because he’s going to burn you.’”
The scouting report is obvious. Get in on him and you can stay there. He’s just out of ideas on how to beat you one on one.
And it seems he’s given up on that.
It’s an immense challenge for Pettersson and the team. It may not be fixable until after this off-season: he clearly needs to add some power to his stride and that’s a tough thing to fix in-season.