The Vancouver Canucks’ most significant victory of the season may have happened right off the floor.
The team said on Saturday morning that it had signed star centre Elias Pettersson to a $92.8 million, eight-year contract extension. With this deal, which is the highest in the franchise’s history, the 25-year-old will remain in Vancouver until the 2031–2032 campaign.
According to Patrik Allvin, general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, “this is a very important signing for the team.” “Elias is an important part of our leadership group and one of the best players in the National Hockey League.” We anticipate watching Elias flourish and develop as we know his finest days are still ahead of him and because of his exceptional talent and drive to excel.
When Pettersson joined the team as a 19-year-old at the start of the 2018–19 season, he immediately made an impression after being selected by the Canucks fifth overall in the 2017 draft. On his first NHL shot, he scored a seeing-eye goal against the Calgary Flames.
As the rookie of the year, he went on to win the 2019 Calder Trophy, becoming the first Canuck to do so since Pavel Bure in 1992. He led all rookies in goals (28) and points (66).
With 165 goals and 398 points in 387 NHL games, Pettersson, who is currently in his sixth season, has developed into a player who can score more than one point per game. He reached the century mark for the first time in 2022–23, putting up 102 points to finish 10th overall in NHL scoring. As of Saturday morning, he is ranked tenth this season with 75 points from 62 games.
Pettersson completed his entry-level contract and, on October 3, 2021, he signed a three-year bridge agreement with a $7.35 million budget charge, delaying his signing until after the preseason.
He became a restricted free agent this summer after that deal expired. However, Pettersson’s arbitration rights were about to expire, and he had just a year left before becoming an unrestricted free agent. Time was running out to make a choice about his future.
Pettersson suggested that he intended to wait to sign an extension until he saw the path the team was going in, even though he became eligible to do so on July 1, 2023.
He acknowledged candidly, “I always wanted to stay here, but you don’t give up your cards in negotiation, right?” during a press conference on Saturday.
And if he needed confirmation that the Canucks were on the right track to challenge for the Stanley Cup, he has received enough of it.
The Canucks have made a lot of changes since general manager Patrick Allvin and team president Jim Rutherford joined midway through the 2021–2022 season. They brought in Rick Tocchet as the new coach in January 2023, were active in the trade and free-agency markets, and even upgraded the player facilities and dressing room. When Pettersson addressed the media on Saturday, he said that he felt these changes were important.
This season began with an 8-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on opening night, in which Pettersson recorded three assists in addition to a goal. The team sent Tocchet and six players, including Pettersson, to February’s All-Star Weekend and has spent the majority of the season at or near the top of the NHL standings.
And despite a poor showing in February (5-6-2), the Canucks are still atop the Western Conference and have a commanding 10-point advantage over the Vegas Golden Knights in second place in the Pacific Division. For a team whose only playoff experience in the previous eight years was in the fan-free Edmonton bubble in the summer of 2020, it has been an enormous step forward.
Since their first-round loss to the Calgary Flames in 2015, the Canucks have not played a postseason game in front of their home crowd at Rogers Arena. Furthermore, none of the players from that roster are currently members of the organisation.
However, most of the core squad that surprised everyone in 2020 by defeating the Minnesota Wild in a best-of-five qualifying round, upending the St. Louis Blues, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, and forcing the Vegas Golden Knights into seven games, has remained with the team. With 18 points each in 17 postseason games, Pettersson and J.T. Miller shared the team lead in the front row, while Brock Boeser finished with 11 points. Quinn Hughes had a coming-out party with 16 points on the blue line. Additionally, Thatcher Demko made a strong case for himself to start in the NHL in goal when he replaced an injured Jacob Markstrom versus Vegas, giving up just two goals in four games with an incredible.985 saving %.
The only core player to leave was former captain Bo Horvat, who was traded in January of 2023 as he approached unrestricted free agency himself. As part of the proceeds of that deal, the Canucks obtained a first-round draft pick that they used as part of the package sent to Detroit to acquire key defenseman Filip Hronek on Mar 1, 2023. Often paired with Hughes, 26-year-old Hronek has already hit a career high this season, with 44 points in 62 games.
Set to become a restricted free agent himself this summer, Hronek’s status is just one item on a long list that Allvin can address with more clarity now that he has cost certainty with Pettersson. Hughes and the injured Carson Soucy are the only top-four defensemen signed beyond this season. Up front, decisions will need to be made on trade-deadline acquisition Elias Lindholm, who was acquired during the All-Star break, as well as pending UFAs Teddy Blueger and Sam Lafferty.
Boeser will also be eligible to sign an extension on July 1. The 27-year-old leads the Canucks this year with 35 goals, a new career high.
As the scrutiny surrounding his contract status intensified over the last few weeks, Pettersson’s play fell off. After scoring 14 goals in 13 games in January, he tallied just twice in the same number of games in February, although he did log nine assists.
With a total value of $92.8 million, Pettersson’s new deal slots in as the ninth-highest of all-time, per Spotrac. Based on contracts currently on the books for 2024-25, Pettersson’s average annual value of $11.6 million is fifth-highest, just ahead of fellow Swede William Nylander, who inked an eight-year extension worth $92 million on Jan. 8.
But this is a deal that’s expected to age well. At 25, Pettersson is just entering his peak years, and should still be playing at a high level at age 33 when the contract expires. And with the NHL’s salary cap expected to start rising significantly over the next few years after a slowdown caused by the economics of the pandemic, contracts at or near nine figures should become more frequent occurrences going forward.
Now, the Canucks can get back to the business of winning hockey games. They’re on the road until the March 8 trade deadline, on a three-game road trip that kicks off Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks.
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