Canucks D-Corps
I still recall the mixed sound of chuckles and “whats?!” buzzing around the Bell Centre when the Canucks selected D-man Elias Pettersson in the 3rd round of the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal. The initial response, as if someone was pulling a prank, subsided soon enough when folks realized the club and the player meant business.
The then 18-year-old Swedish blueliner admitted he was a fan of his more famous namesake, the then 23-year-old forward “Petey”, who was on the verge of producing a 102-point season for the Canucks.
This season, both Petey and Petey-D have made news in the market. The previous for getting off to a slow start and struggling for stretches, now with 31 points in 43 games, and the latter simply for getting called up. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound defenceman played his first two games in the NHL this past week.
“I’m a really big fan of the kid,” Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet said postgame following Vancouver’s 2-1 victory against the Washington Capitals on Saturday night. “How many games he plays, I don’t know at this point, but I just think he’s going to get better. He’s got that swagger. He goes into piles and blows people up, he’s not scared of that. He can stops cycles, we need guys that can do that. He’s a young defenceman that you can really build off.”
Pettersson officially registered two hits and a blocked shot in his debut that night while winning some physical puck battles and finishing a plus-one. He added two hits in his game against the St. Louis Blues two nights later, this time a minus-one in another Vancouver win.
“I think I play my best game when I keep it simple and hard,” Petey-D said on Saturday. “I want to be physical, that’s one part of my game, and just wanna be that fast puck mover.”
“He can skate, he’s got good size, he’s competitive, a nice kid,” Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said postgame on Saturday. “He’s gonna play a long time, this is the start of hopefully a long career for him. Not easy coming in the way (our) last couple games have gone, he did well, and for him, he’s just gonna continue to get better and better.”
Strong words from one of the three best defencemen in the National Hockey League.
Pettersson has made a lasting impression. Already an American Hockey League all-star, he might soon be the other Petey’s equivalent in terms of making fans back home in Sweden take notice. Saturday night was just the start.
“I think my whole family will be watching,” he said pregame. “They’ve been with me my whole journey, so I’m happy to have them be in my life.”
