Canucks: Jim Benning should extend Elias Pettersson now

The Vancouver Canucks should try and sign Elias Pettersson to a long term contract this offseason to help save some cap space moving forward.

Note: This article is based on the assumption that the salary cap will stay at $81.5 million.

With big names such as Jacob Markstrom and Tyler Toffoli set to become UFAs this summer, Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning will have his hands full trying to keep the current roster intact.

However, this shouldn’t stop him from trying to re-sign Elias Pettersson to a long-term contract in the offseason, since his entry-level deal is set to expire next year.

History has shown that many young and elite forwards tend to experience a breakout season in their third year in the league.

Sebastian Aho, Mitch Marner and Brayden Point are just a few notable examples.

If Pettersson undergoes a similar offensive explosion, he will no doubt command a lot more money next offseason than he would right now. The young Swede currently averages 0.95 points per game, which means that he will most likely command a deal similar to the ones Marner and Auston Matthews inked if he were to sign this summer:

Pettersson’s contract would most likely be closer to Matthews’ deal than Marner’s since he plays down the middle. Taking that into account, he would probably ask for just over 14 percent of the team’s overall cap, which would be around $11.4-$11.5 million per season. Similar to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ stars, this would be a short term deal that only buys one or two UFA years. If Pettersson were to sign for the full eight years, he would no doubt leapfrog Matthews and earn an amount closer to $12 million every year.

Now, if ‘Petey’ were to experience a breakout season and sign next summer, how much more could he command? Luckily, we can use William Nylander and Aho’s contracts as a comparison.

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Both Nylander and Aho scored at similar rates in their first couple of seasons, with the former averaging 0.73 points per game from 2015-2018 and the latter producing 0.71 points per game from 2016-2018. However, the Swede signed his deal after the 2017-18 season while the Finn inked his extension in the summer of 2019 following his breakout season.

The difference between their two contracts are drastic; while they’re both set to become UFAs in the summer of 2024, Aho makes a whopping $1.5 million more than Nylander each season.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Pettersson will be able to command a similar increase in pay if he breaks out and signs next summer, but it does show the difference one year could make.

If he does experience an offensive explosion and sign in 2021, he could conceivably surpass Connor Mcdavid and become the highest-paid player in the game.

Putting up 90 to100 points next year will bump ‘Petey’s’ career PPG to just over one, which means that only Mcdavid will have had a higher average at the time of signing his contract when looking at the deals that young stars have been given in the past few years.

This might result in Pettersson taking up at least 15 percent of the cap, which would reward him with around $12.23 million per year. If he were to sign for eight seasons, that number would increase and inch closer to 16 percent, which would result in him signing the richest deal in league history that pays him about $12.75 million annually.

As you can see, by signing him this offseason, the Canucks might be able to save around $1 million in cap space per season. This might not sound like much, but it will certainly go a long way in helping the team lock up other key pieces such as Quinn Hughes, who might demand a contract that pays him over $10 million every year as well.

Needless to say, the Canucks GM will certainly have a lot on his plate this summer.