Marcus Pettersson's next contract, Filip Chytil's breakout potential and more

On Sunday night, the Vancouver Canucks lost after the conclusion of regulation for the 11th time this season.

Vancouver’s overtime performance this season has been baffling, especially for that a team that employs Quinn Hughes — who tried to gut it out, but ultimately wasn’t in the lineup on Sunday — and a variety of other high-end players. It’s also been costly.

The Canucks are 3-10 in overtime decisions and 4-11 beyond regulation this season. This is the sort of noisy indicator that rarely holds for teams year over year, which means we can fairly conclude it’s mostly bad luck, but if Vancouver was just .500 or thereabouts beyond regulation, it would be pretty firmly in a playoff spot — and within spitting distance of the Los Angeles Kings for third in the Pacific Division.

Instead, the Canucks, who just shed their top-performing forward on Friday, find themselves two points back of the Calgary Flames coming out of this weekend’s games. The Canucks might be the better team on paper, but they’ll face an uphill climb with 30 games to play if they hope to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive season.

Putting aside another frustrating overtime result on Sunday, the Canucks have performed pretty well overall across two games since trading J.T. Miller — even if both games resulted in losses, to the Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings (in overtime) respectively. At least the club controlled play, manufactured scoring chances and maintained a sky-high work rate, which hasn’t always been true this season.

As we turn the page from the noise and drama that has characterized the Canucks season so far, let’s open our notebook and go deep on how the newcomers have fit in, what Marcus Pettersson’s next contract could look like and a pair of stories impacting the state of the blue line.

The emergence of the other Elias Pettersson

It’s only been three games, his five-on-five ice time has been prescribed and his usage has been sheltered, but it’s impossible not to be impressed with how Elias Pettersson, the defenceman, has performed in his first cup of coffee at the NHL level.

Sunday night’s performance, which included Pettersson picking up his first career point on a Pius Suter deflection that opened the scoring, was easily his best showing yet. Not only did Pettersson log over 16 minutes of ice time, holding down a regular shift in a close game for the first time in his career, but the Canucks dominated play in his five-on-five minutes, and it was Pettersson’s decision-making with the puck that keyed that territorial edge.

Most impressively, where Pettersson’s usage had been curbed and protected in his previous outings, on Monday he seemed to have earned some trust and a longer leash from Adam Foote, who had Pettersson log nearly seven minutes head-to-head against the Patrick Kane line. Vancouver outshot Detroit 7-0 in those minutes.

We’ve reported at length in this space about the sense that Canucks management has felt caught somewhat in between on the back end: needing pieces to bolster the back end in the short term, but confident about some of the talent they have coming in the system. Pettersson is a big part of that, and now we can see why the organization has been so excited about his hockey IQ and abilities at the NHL level.

One storyline to track over the balance of this season will be how the club balances its short-term competitive goals with the more forward-looking need to blood players like Pettersson, newly acquired right-handed defender Vittorio Mancini, scoring forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki and, after his college season ends, defenseman Tom Willander with next season in mind.

Sustainability is always the key trick for young players like Pettersson, but based on his performance across his first three NHL appearances, he’s clearly done enough to earn a more extended look.


Defenceman Elias Pettersson had his best showing yet in the Canucks’ 3-2 OT loss to the Red Wings on Sunday. (Bob Frid / Imagn Images)

Marcus Pettersson’s next contract

The Canucks didn’t acquire defenseman Marcus Pettersson to be a rental player and are expected to open extension talks with his camp this week.

Pettersson is a fascinating player. He’s big and he’s tough, but not classically tough. His brand of toughness is less about throwing giant hits and knockout punches in defense of his teammates than it is about a willingness to take giant hits, provided it helps his club maintain possession, and jump into the battle — regardless of how tough the sparring partner — in defense of his teammates.

He’s also not a dynamic standalone offensive driver from the point, but he can snap the puck ably around the offensive zone. While he’s tended to excel on retrievals and in making a good first pass, it’s worth noting he’s mostly played with Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson over the past two years, a pair of puck-movers who demand a fair bit of attention and respect from NHL forecheckers. It’ll be fascinating to see how Pettersson handles the transition game in Vancouver, given he’ll be counted on to do more of the heavy lifting in transition on his own.

In Pettersson’s Canucks debut on Sunday night, you could see the upgrade he offers. While still possessing the size and length that Vancouver’s defensive approach demands, he is more mobile and comfortable on the puck than most of the defenders we’ve watched log minutes for the Canucks this season, and that was evident immediately against Detroit.

Which brings us to his next contract, and what it might look like if the two sides can hammer out a deal over the next few weeks, as the club intends.

While an awful lot goes into these sorts of negotiations, in handicapping market value, we can bear in mind that three primary factors tend to determine how NHL defenders are compensated: points, minutes and leverage.

Marcus Pettersson hasn’t been a high-scoring defender throughout his NHL career but has tended to chip in 20-25 points a season from the back end. His production, however, has spiked over the past two seasons. He managed 30 points last year and is pacing to flirt with that 30-point milestone again in his platform year.

Pettersson has been more like a top-pair defender than a top-four defender from a usage perspective at five-on-five over the past few years. On Sunday night, albeit with Hughes sidelined, he logged over 25 minutes for Vancouver.

Leverage-wise, Pettersson and his camp will be in the driver’s seat somewhat in the wake of the trade to acquire him. This is a relatively common leaguewide dynamic, where a team acquires a pending unrestricted free agent ahead of the trade deadline intending to lock the player up and make them a long-term fixture in their lineup. When that happens, especially when the trade is a high-profile one, negotiations tend to favour the player, given the team is already pot committed based on the acquisition price.

We know the upper limit of the NHL salary cap is going up to $95.5 million next season, which is going to distort contractual comparables for in-demand unrestricted free agents. Still, there are a couple of relevant comparables that are worth bearing in mind that set a floor and a ceiling in talks between the Canucks and Pettersson’s camp.

Dallas Stars defender Esa Lindell is the floor case. Lindell signed a $5.25 million annual average value extension before this season for five years. Like Pettersson, Lindell is a 20-plus-minutes-per-night player who consistently produces about 25 points per season. Their profiles are eerily similar, although Pettersson has produced more points while Lindell has the bigger shot and is the more consistent goal threat.

Nashville Predators defender Brady Skjei is the ceiling case. Skjei tested free agency this past summer and ended up signing a $7 million annual average value extension for the maximum seven years with the Nashville Predators. Skjei is a reliable 20-plus-minutes-per-night defender but tends to flirt with the 40-point milestone, putting him in a different category offensively than Lindell and Pettersson.

While both Lindell and Skjei signed with no state tax teams, which we should adjust for, the range here is still instructive. There’s no world where Pettersson comes in at a number lower than the $5.25 million with term that Lindell signed for, and you’d imagine the Canucks would be reticent to go up to $7 million and seven years the way the Predators did with Skjei.

Given Pettersson’s statistical profile and the leverage dynamics at play we should probably set our baseline expectations for his next deal somewhere in the range of six years at a $6.5 million annual average value.

Does Chytil have breakout potential?

Filip Chytil has never hit 50 points in an NHL season, so if you pulled up his stats on HockeyDB, you might have walked away believing he’s just a run-of-the-mill third-line player.

However, Chytil’s skill level, even-strength production and potential have always exceeded his raw point totals. The 25-year-old centre has scored 2.09 points per 60 at five-on-five since the 2022-23 season, which ranks 58th-best out of 339 NHL forwards who’ve logged at least 1500 minutes in that timeframe.

5v5 points-per-60 rate since 2022-23

Chytil has been a more efficient five-on-five point producer in that span than every current Canucks forward except Elias Pettersson. He hasn’t broken out as a 50-to-60-point producer despite that even-strength success for a few reasons:

• Chytil barely produces on the power play (partly because he was on the New York Rangers’ second unit which doesn’t get much ice time).
• He’s run into some serious injury issues which have lowered his games played and disrupted his consistency.
• He hasn’t gotten a full-time opportunity as a top-six centre because Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad were ahead of him in New York.

Chytil played 20:03 against the Red Wings, which is a huge bump up from the 14:20 he averaged with the Rangers this season. Could increased usage and a top-six opportunity in Vancouver unlock a modest breakout? On Sunday, Canucks fans got a tantalizing glimpse at how dynamic Chytil’s speed and puck-carrying are.

In the clip below, he starts with the puck below the goal line in the defensive zone. Chytil uses his pace and stickhandling to weave through the neutral zone, create an offensive entry with possession and tee Conor Garland up with a pass in the slot.

Video courtesy Sportsnet

Chytil is comfortable hanging onto the puck and making poised plays even when defenders are closing in on him and applying pressure. In the clip below, Michael Rasmussen pressures Chytil. Most Vancouver forwards would have dumped the puck in, but Chytil maneuvered his way past Rasmussen to the outside. Erik Gustafsson, the defenceman hanging back, is forced to gap up at the blue line, which makes him unavailable to be the first player back if the puck is chipped in. Recognizing that, Chytil shovels the puck past Gustafsson, wins the foot race and passes it to Dakota Joshua to get the Canucks set up with clean possession in the attacking end.

Chytil created a whopping nine offensive zone entries with possession against the Red Wings.

Vancouver’s coaching staff has to be careful not to coach the puck-carrying ambition and creativity out of Chytil’s game. Yes, Chytil’s going to turn the puck over once in a while because of the high-skill plays he attempts (he had a couple against Detroit, too). The Canucks will need to be patient and understand that the reward of Chytil’s rush-based attacking will generally outweigh the risk of occasional turnovers.

O’Connor and the handful third line

In the wake of the Miller trade, the Canucks wanted to bring in a heavy forward with some size to offset one of the many areas in which Miller impacts the game.

No one will confuse Miller for Drew O’Connor, but the speedy 6-foot-3 forward is a forechecking ace and a handful to break the puck out against. That’s something the Canucks felt they needed, and something O’Connor was able to provide in his Canucks debut on Saturday night.

The new third line — O’Connor with Suter and Kiefer Sherwood — was probably the Canucks’ best on Sunday night. At five-on-five, that line outshot the Red Wings 6-1 but unfortunately, the one shot against they were on the ice for resulted in a Red Wings goal.

It was still an auspicious start for O’Connor, who was able to play to the identity the Canucks are looking for in their bottom six with more pace and effectiveness than what Danton Heinen managed throughout this season.

Soucy’s healthy scratch and long-term fit

With Marcus Pettersson’s arrival, Carson Soucy will no longer need to handle matchup minutes against the opposition’s star players. That’s good for the Canucks given Soucy’s struggles this season. There’s a good chance he’ll refind his game if he can play more sheltered third-pair minutes rather than being thrown to the wolves.

However, the Canucks suddenly have an excess of left-side blue-line options and Soucy, who was healthy scratched on Sunday, suddenly has serious work to do to re-establish himself as an everyday option. Once Hughes returns, he and Marcus Pettersson will be locks on the left-side defence. Derek Forbort, Elias Pettersson and Soucy will all be contenders for the third-pair spot on the left side.

Noah Juulsen should come out and play Soucy on his off side on the bottom pair because the former has been a liability at even strength, but we’ll see if the coaching staff views that as a viable option.

Soucy’s full no-trade clause (yes, he surprisingly has one) transitions to a 12-team no-trade list on July 1, so the Canucks will have flexibility to explore the trade market on him if the two Petterssons become penciled in to play on the left side behind Hughes next season.

(Top photo of Marcus Pettersson playing the puck ahead of Marco Kasper: Derek Cain / Getty Images)



Sumber

ARTIKEL TERKAITDARI PENULIS