There are numerous stories over the decades, relating to how a professional athlete overcame adversity to perform at levels no one thought possible. Two examples which immediately spring to mind, are Michael Jordan's 'flu game' in the 1997 NBA Finals and Brett Favre's spectacular Monday night performance just one day after his dad had passed away.
Of course, there are just as many occasions when players melted under the limelight, when more was expected of them. The power of the mind really is extremely fascinating, both in the positive and the negative sense.
We bring this up, as a means to segue into Elias Pettersson's less than inspiring start to the 2024-25 regular season for the Canucks. Expected to lead the charge towards a second consecutive playoff spot in Vancouver, he has instead served as the poster boy for their uninspiring 1-1-2 record through four games.
Now we appreciate there will be those who ask why we are focusing on Pettersson, when there are plenty of players on the team not performing as well as expected so far? This includes the likes of Daniel Sprong, Vincent Desharnais, Artūrs Šilovs and so on.
The literal and figurative price you pay for signing a big deal
However, fair or not, more is expected of Pettersson by virtue of his contract of eight years and $92.8 million, which he signed in March of last season. It has just kicked in to begin this campaign and makes him the highest-paid player on the team, but he's hardly performing like someone worthy of such a deal.
The four-time NHL All-Star has -- among other things -- just one point through the first four games of this season, which quite simply isn't good enough for someone of his calibre. However, the reality is his lack of production dates back to last season, interestingly around the time he signed his contract extension.
Consider that in the first 49 games of last season, Pettersson had produced an impressive 64 points. In fact, he was performing at a pace which had him on course to break his career high of 102 points, which he'd set just a season earlier.
Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the 25-year-old then seemingly fell off the proverbial cliff edge, and struggled the rest of the way. He only managed another 31 points during his final 46 games of the season, which included just six points in 13 playoff contests.
The psychological factor
Going back to the power of the mind, this has led to a couple of intriguing and conflicting -- in a manner of speaking -- potential theories as to why Pettersson has gone off the boil. And they both relate to his contract extension.
One, is that the 2017 fifth overall draft pick is now resting on his laurels, having finally bagged the big deal. The other, is that he's struggling to deal with the pressure which accompanies such a significant amount of money.
Now we're loathe to believe that Pettersson just doesn't care anymore, given all that he has achieved up to this point of his hockey career. He's worked so hard to get to this point, and it would be extremely surprising if he now wants to ruin his reputation and has just stopped giving a damn.
As such, we would put more stock into the Sweden native feeling the pressure to live up to his massive contract. Although even here, we would only believe it to a certain extent.
Pettersson has more than proved he can handle the limelight, often exceeding expectations if anything, as he has repeatedly shown what he's capable of in the hockey world. This includes winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL's best rookie and extending to the international game, helping Sweden win Gold at the 2018 IIHF World Championship in Denmark.
Perhaps the best theory to explain Pettersson's struggles
Another theory which might make most sense with the forward in the psychological respect, relates to the injury he suffered last season. During his end-of-season presser, he said he'd been dealing with a knee injury since January, which apparently got steadily worse over time and impacted his production on the ice.
In theory this would explain a lot, expect for the fact that the Canucks disputed the extent of said knee injury. In fact, during an appearance on The Sekeres & Price Show at the end of May, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff claimed the Canucks believed the injury was being overblown by the player.
Now for his part, as we wrote last month, Pettersson says the injury is now a thing of the past. As per Lachlan Irvine of Canucks Army, he said: "I had to train around my knee injury, but I feel great. We figured out a way to work around it. I don’t feel any pain in it now or after (the skates), it’s not a big thing, knee is fine."
Here's the thing though, whether the injury was as bad (or as real) as the Sundsvall, Sweden native believed, he could well have a mental block which is somehow subconsciously impacting his play. Giving due credit to Jim Parsons of NHL Trade Talk, this could be inadvertently also negatively impacting his confidence.
This would by extension manifest itself in Pettersson constantly worrying about his knee being hit. Or any time he feels even a slight discomfort in his knee, this could be causing him to try extra hard to protect it, which would also compromise his ability to play to the full extent of his available talent.
Overall, we fully accept this is all just theorising on our part, with no inside knowledge to know exactly what's going on with Pettersson. At the same time though, again, do not entirely discount the power of the mind both in a positive or -- as in this case -- negative sense.