Canucks’ Elias Pettersson to return after missing eight games
The Vancouver Canucks are finally getting their number-one center back.
Elias Pettersson will re-enter the Canucks’ lineup for Saturday’s game against the San Jose Sharks after missing Vancouver’s last eight games with an upper-body injury.
PETEY! 🙌
Elias Pettersson is in the lineup tonight for the @Canucks after missing the last eight games! pic.twitter.com/kqnCvR9fso
In 28 games played this season, Pettersson has eight goals and 14 assists for 22 points while averaging just over 20 and a half minutes of ice time.
The Swedish national has been the subject of criticism over the last couple of years in Vancouver, but his return will be much-welcomed for a Canucks team that has been wanting for depth down the middle.
Pettersson will step into a Vancouver lineup that has been undergone major changes since his injury. Center Marco Rossi and defenseman Zeev Buium have arrived as new teammates, coming over as part of the blockbuster trade that sent star defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild.
Pettersson, 27, is in the second season of an eight-year, $92.8 million deal that carries an annual cap hit of $11.6 million. He has yet to live up to that contract, as he disappointed last season with 15 goals and 30 assists for 45 points in 64 games. The Canucks inked Pettersson to that major deal with the hopes he would replicate the heights of his 2022-23 campaign, when he tallied 39 goals and 63 assists for 102 points in 80 games.
Selected fifth overall by Vancouver in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Pettersson is in his eighth NHL season, all with the Canucks, and has compiled 479 points in 499 games. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2018-19, and is a four-time NHL All-Star.
After hosting the Sharks on Saturday, Vancouver will visit the Seattle Kraken on Monday before returning home to face the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.