Elias Pettersson came into Saturday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs having gone three games without a point and eight games without a goal.
In his 14 games since returning from injury in early January, Pettersson has just one goal and four assists. It's been an ugly stretch of hockey for the Vancouver Canucks star and things seemed to come to a head during Thursday's game against the San Jose Sharks. Against the worst team in the NHL, Pettersson didn't have a single shot on goal and that's despite four power plays.
"We spent some time in my office yesterday," said Tocchet on Saturday afternoon. "I showed him some power play video of San Jose and I didn't have to say anything. He just looked at me and goes, 'Man, I've got to move my feet.' I'm glad he's saying it, I don't have to say it."
Pettersson responded to the unvoiced criticism with one of his strongest performances of the season. He seemed to be everywhere on the ice and not just because there was a second player with his exact name in the lineup. He picked off passes defensively, attacked with pace, and created chance after chance with his playmaking.
The playmaking was the most noticeable part, as he made a sublime pass to set up the Canucks’ opening goal off the stick of Filip Hronek.
It’s just one point to break a drought of three games but hopefully, it’s the start of something more. While the Canucks have been winning, there has been some obvious concern over Pettersson’s performance.
"Listen, we've got to get this guy going," said Tocchet. "And he's got to get himself going. There's a lot that just comes with the territory: dealing with pressure, dealing with stuff. If you want to be the guy that goes against the best, then you have to kind of act being the best. That means moving your feet and applying yourself. We've talked about that and I think he's trying to do that. He is really trying to do that."
On Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Pettersson was the guy that went up against the best. He was matched up against Auston Matthews and not only shut down the Leafs’ captain but assisted on Hronek’s goal while on the ice with the Matthews line.
“I could just tell early on he was in it,” said Tocchet about using Pettersson in the match-up role. “Just a couple times, I yelled his name to go out. One time, he hesitated, and I said, ‘No, get out there, you’ve got him.’ I think he needs a little bit of a push — ‘You got him tonight’ — and I think that was a big thing for him.”
There’s still work to do. While Pettersson was excellent defensively and did great work playmaking offensively, he still only had one shot on goal. There wasn’t the same seeming reluctance to shoot from previous games but the shots still didn’t come. Ahead of the game, Tocchet pointed to the example of Matthews and his shoot-first mentality.
“When you anticipate that you're going to get it, then you stride into it a little bit," said Tocchet. "I think you learn from the best players. You look at Matthews, when he gets it, I never see him straight-legged. He's got his hips down, he's already anticipating, and he's obviously got the great hands and it's off his stick within half a second. [Pettersson] can learn off that.”
It was an encouraging game from Pettersson and he seemed to be in a much more positive mood in the locker room after the game. They say that winning solves everything and the general vibe around the team has been much improved after going 6-1-1 in their last eight games.
Pettersson seemed positively chipper by his standards, sticking around to chat one-on-one with a few different reporters after his media scrum. I was racking my brain trying to figure out possible reasons for his improved mood after I watched this game.
- The Canucks are now 3-0-1 in the last four games without Quinn Hughes, which might be the most positive element of this brief stretch of hockey. For most of the season, the Canucks have been drowning in their minutes without Hughes on the ice; suddenly, with the addition of Marcus and Elias Pettersson on defence, they’ve got a couple of PFDs to keep them afloat. Hopefully, that means they’ll be even better when Hughes does return.
- “I mean, he’s been carrying us all year,” said Pettersson (#40) with a laugh. “I wish he was back yesterday but it’s good that we get some wins.”
- The Canucks made like Chappell Roan and came out hot to go in the first period, outshooting the Leafs 11-to-6 in the opening 20 minutes. They were all over the Leafs like the first snow of the year.
- A fantastic shift by Pettersson (#40) led to the opening goal. He maintained possession with a stiff reverse hit on Simon Benoit that led to a point shot for Derek Forbort, then picked off a breakout pass to extend the possession. He held onto the puck as Filip Hronek slipped up the right side, then Pettersson put the puck right on Hronek’s tape on the backdoor with a brilliant pass that Hronek chipped in for eagle.
- “I got the puck and I had some time,” said Pettersson. “I saw Hronek trying to get past his guy and I tried to wait for the right timing.”
- “Petey did a great job of selling it,” said Tocchet. “He looked somewhere else and the Leafs looked where they thought he was going to pass. That’s obviously a high-level play he made. Great goal by Fil to recognize that was open.”
- It should be noted that even though Pettersson had just one shot on goal, he came inches from scoring with one of his missed shots, ringing the puck off the post with six minutes left in the first period. It wasn’t from a great angle but, like Edward Scissorhands, he had a lot of room upstairs.
- After Nils Höglander drew his sixth penalty in his last ten games, the Canucks tried some new power play units. The first(?) unit was Hronek, Pettersson, Höglander, Jake DeBrusk, and Pius Suter. The second(?) unit was Tyler Myers, Brock Boeser, Filip Chytil, Dakota Joshua, and Conor Garland. I would say the power play is trying to find an identity without J.T. Miller but they’ve also been without Quinn Hughes, so it seems like it’s spaghetti time for the Canucks, ie. throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
- One big development in this game is that Thatcher Demko left it. Exactly ten minutes into the game, Demko quietly left during a TV timeout, with Kevin Lankinen coming in to replace him. There didn’t seem to be any inciting incident, though the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast pointed to a moment during warm-up when Demko appeared to tweak something.
Looks like Thatcher Demko tweaked something during warmups tonight. 🎥: Sportsnet | NHL #Canucks #LeafsForever
— CanucksArmy (@canucksarmy.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 5:03 PM
[image or embed]
- According to Tocchet, however, the injury occurred in-game. That jibes with Kevin Lankinen’s assertion that he had no heads up from Demko before he was called upon to enter the game. If Demko was feeling something in warm-up, it’s likely he would have let Lankinen know.
- “No, he wasn’t hurt [in warm-up],” said Tocchet. “It was just something that happened during the game. I don’t think it’s that serious, I don’t know. From early reports, it’s not the knee, so we don’t have to have you guys speculate.”
- Lankinen was superb despite coming in cold after Demko’s equivocal injury. Demko stopped all six shots he faced, then Lankinen made 21 saves on 22 shots to earn the win. He was flashing more leather than a pervert in a cow pasture.
- “He’s been standing on his head all year for us and he did it again tonight,” said Pettersson. “I’m not surprised anymore.”
- “It’s probably easier to come in earlier, just because you’re still warm from warm-ups and stuff and you haven’t sat there for a couple of hours,” said Lankinen. “It’s a great challenge — I always embrace it. Just get tossed in the fire and come out with a tan from it.”
- Pettersson wasn’t the only Canuck to hit the post. Heck, he wasn’t even the only Pettersson to hit the post, as the other Elias Pettersson hit one post and Marcus Pettersson hit one too. Of the Canucks’ four posts on the night, however, Tyler Myers came closest to scoring. Pettersson (#40) rotated to the top of the zone with the puck and passed to Pettersson (#29). With two Petterssons up top, Myers activated up the left side, took a pass from Pettersson (#29) and rung the puck off the inside of the bar, millimeters from going post and in.
- The Leafs clawed one back with just five seconds left in the second period. The goal came immediately after a power play ended, as Morgan Rielly beat Lankinen from the right faceoff circle before Drew O’Connor could get back into the play from the penalty box. The puck threaded the needle through Marcus Pettersson’s legs, off the far post, and in.
- After the late goal in the second, the Canucks could have crumbled — they could have laid down and died — but no, not them. While the shots on goal were even at eight apiece, the Canucks had the far more dangerous chances and largely controlled play in the third period.
- “You never like to give up the goal with four seconds left but I thought the guys were resilient and played really hard,” said Tocchet.
- I thought this was a neat sequence from Pettersson (#40). I feel like the TV broadcast didn’t quite capture how impressive Pettersson’s pass was to DeBrusk, as he hacked down on a bouncing puck like he was chopping wood and sent the puck skittering across the slot before DeBrusk set up Sherwood on the doorstep. Then Pettersson won the puck back by pretty much sitting on it. Whatever works, I guess.
- Sherwood was a great addition to the Pettersson/DeBrusk line, as he was like an Energizer Bunny on the ice, winning seemingly every race for the puck. One of those won races led to him drawing a penalty, as Oliver Ekman-Larsson, perhaps because he didn’t like getting shown up by Sherwood’s effort, smacked him in the face with his stick.
- I simply adore the way Kiefer Sherwood plays hockey. That’s it. That’s the bullet point.
- Since Pettersson was on the ice for the penalty, the second(?) unit started the power play, except with Hronek at the point. That worked out well, as Hronek made a fantastic pass to his fellow Filip along the blue line to keep the puck in the offensive zone, then Chytil set up Boeser in the slot. Boeser caught Joseph Woll off-guard by whipping a low shot along the ice and just inside the post to make it 2-1. It was Filip to Filip to Boeser filling up the net.
- Full credit to Filip Hronek, who has been outstanding for the Canucks without Quinn Hughes. He has four points in the last four games, as he's really been showing up for the team. Heck, he's even showing up for the media, as he did brief, but good-natured scrum after the game.
- Conor Garland is a menace on the forecheck. It’s one thing for him to attack with speed and steal from most defencemen — when that defenceman is the ever-reliable Chris Tanev, then it’s especially impressive.
- When the Leafs got a late power play, let’s just say that Rick Tocchet was…unimpressed by the relative hardness of the call. On the Mohs Hardness Scale, Tocchet likely would have compared it to Talc.
- Lankinen came up with his biggest save of the night on that penalty kill against one of the best goalscorers in the league. Auston Matthews had the puck with time and a seemingly open net after a hard cross-seam pass from William Nylander but Lankinen lifted his giant glove like an antenna to heaven and snagged the puck.
- “That’s where instinct kicks in a little bit, right?” said Lankinen. “Things happen fast, there’s a lot going on, so you’ve got to just trust your gut, trust your instinct. [Matthews] is a hell of a player — they all are — so it’s always a great challenge to meet those guys.”
- “They’re one of those teams like Colorado and Edmonton — they’re really good at finding seams,” said Tocchet. “They sell the shot and then all of a sudden they whip it across. I thought we handled that half-decently. I know Lanks had to make a save there on the one but taking that back ice against teams like that is big because they can zip it around.”
- I enjoyed Tyler Myers’ contribution to the late penalty kill: literally lying down on the job. It worked, as he blocked a shot from John Tavares, then held the puck out as Tavares jammed away before launching the puck towards the blue line, nearly getting the clear with one giant kick.
- “I was just trying to kick it out of the crease and I almost got it all the way out,” said Myers with a grin. “It was a good one.”
- Filip Chytil and Drew O’Connor have both tallied their first goals as Canucks and Marcus Pettersson came agonizingly close to joining them. He raced out of the penalty box to chase down an icing and nearly tucked the puck into the empty net but hit the post instead. It’ll come, Pettersson. It’ll come.
- Now the Canucks will get a long break for the 4-Nations Face-Off, as they have two weeks until their next game on February 22. It will be even longer before they’re back on home ice, as the Canucks’ next home game isn’t until March 5, nearly a month from now. That makes it all the better that they headed into the break with such a great win, especially with so many Leafs fans in the building.
- “Yeah, big time,” said Pettersson when asked if he enjoyed silencing the visiting Leafs fans. “Before the game even started, they were going back and forth [with Canucks fans]. I was just enjoying the moment and getting fired up from it.”
