Canucks may have new Swedish ‘twins’
Pettersson, Dahlén play down comparisons to Sedins, but they also have a special hockey bond
PENTICTON — Four years ago, Jonathan Dahlén was lighting it up with the Timra U-20 team when the winger on his line suffered an injury.
The coach approached Dahlén about who he’d like to replace his fallen linemate. Dahlén answered, well, since you asked there’s this skinny kid we just called up from the U-18 team I’ve played with a bit. Let’s give him a shot.
On their first shift together, Elias Pettersson set up Dahlén for a goal.
“It was like instant chemistry,” Dahlén said. “I think he had 15 points in the next seven games.”
This, of course, is a gross exaggeration. Pettersson rattled off 13 points in his six games with the U-20s.
“It just worked,” said Dahlén. “Elias makes things easy.”
And now they are trying to find that same magic again in Vancouver. There is a bond between the two that transcends the game and finds a place deep within both players. They’re not twins, like the two Swedes who just retired after rewriting the Canucks’ record books. But there’s something there, some extrasensory connection that is expressed on ice.
“We both dreamed of playing in the NHL and we’re still dreaming,” said Pettersson.
And now they can reach out and touch that dream.
Pettersson and Dahlén, as you may have read, have arrived in Vancouver as part of the vanguard that will change this franchise. Pettersson is the more celebrated of the two, coming off a season with Vaxjo in the Swedish elite league where he led the Lakers to the championship as a 19-year-old, inspiring comparisons to Peter Forsberg and Henrik Zetterberg along the way.
Pettersson is projected to make the Canucks’ opening-night lineup and he’s already rated as one of the rookie-of-the-year favourites, something he’s been asked about roughly 19 times through the first two days of the Young Stars Classic.
His stock answer: “That gives me a lot of confidence.”
But, for the Canucks, the more exciting possibility concerns the partnership between Pettersson and Dahlén. It was in full bloom before they took divergent paths last season but they played on the same line in Friday night’s opening game of the Young Stars tournament and it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to envision them playing together in the NHL.
Just like they dreamed.
“To be in the same organization is something special,” said Pettersson. “I feel very comfortable with this.”
Pettersson might have had the more celebrated year last season but Dahlén’s was equally eventful and revealed just as much about the 20-year-old winger.
After the pair played together on Timra’s entry in the Allsvenskan two seasons ago, finishing one-two on the team in scoring, Pettersson decamped for Vaxjo and Dahlén stayed behind.
His goal was to lead his club team back to the Swedish elite league and, in something of a storybook campaign, that’s exactly what he did. After finishing second in league scoring, he led Timra to a comefrom-behind win in their showdown series with Karlskrona, winning promotion to the elite league in the process and a permanent place in the team’s history.
“He’ll always be remembered for what he did for the club,” Timra coach Freddie Andersson wrote in an email. “He was the difference. They will talk about Jonathan for a long time in Sweden.”
Shortly after Timra knocked off Karlskrona, Pettersson was asked on Swedish TV about the promotion. He can be seen fighting back tears as he talked about his old team and his friend.
“Timra means a lot to me,” he said. “It helped me develop as a player. That was my reaction.”
And this was Dahlén’s reaction to his season: He rejected a number of offers to join the elite league, including several pitches from Vaxjo. He now says he wouldn’t change a thing and he learned more about the game and himself by staying in Timra.
“I think it was good for us to play apart from each other and have some success,” he said. “It wasn’t a negative.
“I grew as a leader and a person and also as a player. I took on a lot of responsibility and it meant so much. I think I gained a lot more than if I’d gone to the top league.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now, there’s something special about this kid.
Last summer, Dahlén spent some time in Vancouver where his orbit collided with Henrik and Daniel Sedin. It was a heady time for the young Swede, to work out with two giant figures from his homeland. It also leads to an inevitable comparison that will be made repeatedly in the forthcoming years.
It’s absurd, of course, to suggest Pettersson and Dahlén will have careers similar to the Sedins and make a similar impact on the franchise, especially when you look at their slight frames and unscarred features.
But, with the twin’s retirement, there’s a vacuum on the Canucks’ top line and there will be an opportunity for both players to step into feature roles.
What they do with that opportunity will be of vital concern to this market during the next few years.
“I feel confident in my game but it’s not like I’m thinking of myself as a Hall of Famer,” Dahlén said with a laugh. “They’re (Sedins) two of the best Swedish players ever. I’m not going to compare myself to them just yet. I’m going to work very hard and give it everything I’ve got. We’ll see how this turns out.”
But he also took something away from his time with the Sedins.
“They’re amazing guys. You don’t really understand you’re working out with two guys who led the NHL in scoring. It’s crazy how good they are as guys.”
And crazy to think he and his buddy will be following them.
They will talk about Jonathan for a long time in Sweden.”
Coach Freddie Andersson