Canucks: 3 takeaways from the year-end media availability

As expected, there have been a lot of questions surrounding the Vancouver Canucks lately.

The organization made their first attempt to provide answers this past week, scheduling their annual post-season media availability. Players took to the microphone on Thursday morning, with head coach Travis Green and general manager Jim Benning following up on Friday.

The Canucks finished the 2020-21 campaign with 50 points and a 23-29-4 record, good for last in the Scotia North Division and 24th in the league standings. More importantly, this season marked the fifth time in the past seven years that the club failed to make the playoffs, all under the Benning regime.

There’s no doubt that this offseason will be one of the most important in franchise history, and the responses on Thursday and Friday were the first indications of what could come.

Let’s take a look at three key takeaways from what was said during both media availabilities:

Elias Pettersson’s injury update

It’s been a windy road for Elias Pettersson this season.

The 22-year-old only struggled out of the gate, recording just four points in his first 10 games. He was able to bounce back, posting 17 points in his remaining 16 games of the year, finishing with a respectable 0.81 points per game, but, as many fans know, he wasn’t able to build off of his momentum.

Pettersson was injured on March 1st during a contest against the Winnipeg Jets. He played the following night, but eventually left halfway through practice a few days later. The organization kept his injury under wraps, only listing him as day-to-day while hinting towards a quick return. However, after visiting with a few specialists, Pettersson was eventually moved to long-term injury reserve, putting his season to an abrupt end.

Pettersson was able to provide a more clear update on Thursday morning, revealing that he hyper-extended his wrist in Winnipeg. He was initially given a return timeline of 4-6 weeks, but, as injuries often go, faced some setbacks that kept him off the ice.

Fortunately, all signs are pointing towards a smooth start to next season for Pettersson, and the former Calder Trophy winner even indicated himself that his wrist is almost at 100%. But, despite how Pettersson is feeling right now, there should be some alarms going off based on how management dealt with the situation.

Up until Thursday, the team never officially announced the cause of Pettersson’s injury, with most guesses coming from reports and insider sources. Yes, organizations aren’t obliged to reveal all information to the media and fanbase, and that’s not expected to change in this league.

What should be an area of concern, however, is how Benning and co. went about with handling the situation. Could he have done something different to help speed up Pettersson’s timeline? Did the organization take the right approaches and visit the right specialists? Why did Pettersson play the night after? Again, we’ll never know the answers to these questions and, in all honesty, it does just sound like Pettersson’s recovery had some bumps in the road, as has occurred for many other injuries.

But with the drama surrounding Jack Eichel and his injury situation in Buffalo, management needs to make sure that they play the right cards with their superstars if a situation like this were to arise again.

And, at the end of the day, even if none of the above actually transpired, we can still chalk this up as another prime example of poor communication from Benning, adding to an already-long list of his managerial mistakes.