The young Vancouver Canucks forward, Elias Pettersson is ranked amongst great company in the NHL’s top 50 list.
After a tough 2020-21 season, where Pettersson missed out on the majority of his season due to a hyperextended wrist injury that held him to only 26 games of the 56-game schedule, the soon-to-be 23-year-old scored ten goals whilst adding 11 assists to make his total point count 21 on the season. Placing him as the 38th best player in the NHL according to the NHL Network.
Whilst being side-lined for 30 games overall, Pettersson still showed those flashes of brilliance all the Canucks fans love and appreciate of the young Swede. Which has to be a huge factor in how a player who played less than half of a season ranks ahead of some players who played the whole season and had breath-taking displays.
So far, the NHL Network has only released the rankings from 31st – 50th best players in the league, so let’s look at the players Pettersson ranked ahead of and behind.
The first impression of looking at and assessing the list is that Pettersson is ahead of a lot of players whose teams made the playoffs last season.
For example, the likes of Carey Price, a guy that made the Stanley Cup final and was praised all season long for his ability to save the Montreal Canadiens game in and game out.
Kris Letang, a guy who scored 45 points, and Jake Guentzel who totaled 57 points in 56 games for the Pittsburgh Penguins and powered them to a playoff appearance.
As well as the likes of Kyle Connor who had a captivating season in Winnipeg with 26 goals and 50 points.
Players he ranked behind
Looking at the list of players Pettersson has ranked behind this season, it is hard to pick a player and argue over whether the young Canucks forward should rank ahead of them and that is unfortunately due to him missing a large part of the season.
For example, a player like Marc-Andre Fleury, a Vezina winner this past season is just one spot ahead at just 37, and Kirill Kaprizov, this year’s Calder Trophy winner is just three spots ahead at 35. As Canucks fans, we should appreciate not knock the company Pettersson has found himself amongst after a hard season.
As of the time of this writing, the young Swede remains unsigned but with rumours that this coming week the talks between the franchise and the player should pick up, the Canucks fans have an exciting season ahead, especially after the active offseason general manager Jim Benning had.
Let’s hope that both Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have been paid before the first puck drop in just 35 days.