The Canucks have two new Petterssons. Elias Pettersson: The younger one. Marcus Pettersson: Petey, but the new one.
Talk about a good problem to have.
The Canucks, of course, need Elias Pettersson the forward to find his way offensively.
Perhaps that will happen thanks to the two D-Peteys — Marcus and, um, Elias.
The returns are very early, of course, but in four games for Elias Pettersson the defenceman and two games for Marcus Pettersson, you can see what the Canucks believe is their way forward — defencemen who can win the puck back quickly in their own end, and then make good aggressive plays to launch speedy breakouts.
“We’ve got great forwards here. So give them the puck as much as you can, but in good spots too.”
He’s a polished NHL defenceman. He knows how to deal with defensive situations to a T, and he knows what it’s like to play with high-end defencemen. He was partnered almost exclusively with either Kris Letang or Erik Karlsson the past couple seasons in Pittsburgh — and he did well in those minutes. Pittsburgh may have struggled overall the past two seasons, but when Pettersson — Marcus, to be clear — has been on the ice, the Penguins did not struggle. They controlled possession well.
The Canucks believe he will be a perfect fit.
And then there’s young Elias Pettersson — the defenceman, to be clear.
Elias Pettersson — again the defenceman, to be clear — says he is happy with how he’s adjusted to the speed and demanding structure of the NHL game. Forecheckers are relentless. There is minimal time to make plays. But your teammates are also almost always in exactly the right spot. AHL hockey can be scrambly, but you have more time. NHL hockey is far more disciplined, which means fewer gaps to exploit and certainly less time to exploit.
“Breaking out the puck while forecheckers are right on you, that’s one thing I’ve been working on, and I’ve been watching a lot of video with Footy and Gonch,” Elias Pettersson (the defenceman) said.
Tocchet played with plenty of hard-edged defencemen in his day. One was Ulf Samuelsson. The coach said there certainly were some parallels between the promise that the young defenceman has shown so far and how the near-legendary Samuelsson played the game. Samuelsson was many things, but one thing that Pettersson — Elias the defenceman, to be clear — does that is similar is an understanding of how to use his body to make life hard on his opponents.
He’s also got a strong hockey IQ, similar to Samuelsson, and similar to Marcus Pettersson.
Those are the kinds of players that Tocchet is hoping his boss GM Patrik Allvin will be able to add to the roster in the coming weeks.
“Hockey-IQ guys, competitive guys and fast guys. That’s what Patrik tells me all the time. That’s what he’s looking for all the time. You know … more speed, competitive guys … every team’s looking for those type of players,” Tocchet said.
“You’ve won the puck in the corner, why throw it back down there,” Tocchet noted.
“The characteristics that we want from our D are that they can move the puck up quick, join the rush, get shots through. Walk the blue line like, maybe not like Hughes, but walk the blue and then make some plays to somebody down low,” he added. “Both Petterssons can do that, and we haven’t even seen (Victor) Mancini yet. I think there’s a big upside with him.”