PETEY AT 100
Young Canuck should only get better
Elias Pettersson has 98 points through his first 100 NHL games.
For a player who entered the league as a 19-year-old, that’s an impressive feat.
What’s amazing, all statistics and his rookie of the year honour aside, is that Pettersson is only now about to enter the historic peak age range for player scoring.
But even in big seasons, there are games when a player can appear to be struggling. In the 1981-82 season, Wayne Gretzky posted an all-time record 212 points. And he somehow managed to have eight games that season where he went pointless.
In other words, when Pettersson doesn’t record points, it’s not out of the ordinary. If the pointless nights add up, as they did last year, it could be a sign of fatigue.
Heading into Tuesday’s game against the Ottawa Senators, he had been held off the scoresheet in three of four games. But the dry patch, he insisted, was simply about having bad luck, nothing more.
Before the game against Ottawa, he poked fun at TSN 1040 radio broadcaster Jeff Paterson, who had proffered a day before that Pettersson looked to have run out of steam in the latter parts of Sunday’s 3-2 loss at home against the Edmonton Oilers.
“I heard your interview. I’m not tired,” he told Paterson with a bit of a grin on Tuesday.
Wednesday, following a 5-2 win over the Senators — one that featured a power play goal from Pettersson — he was asked how he handles stretches when points seem nearly impossible to accumulate.
He took an approach that hearkens back to a not-so-long ago era of Canucks success: he focuses on the process.
“I could have bad games and still have three points, I could have good games and have zero points,” he said Wednesday, after he and his teammates held an off-ice workout before a luncheon with Canucks alumni.
“Of course I want to play my best hockey every game. I feel like I’m still creating chances,” he added. “I’m always trying to be creative, create chances ... but every game is not going to be a highlight game.”
On top of learning how to handle the gruelling NHL schedule — “I had to learn a lot because I hadn’t been on the road that much. We had three six-game road trips last year ... learn to be patient, how to recover, to take one day at a time and make the most of it” — he also had to learn how to not let the white noise get to him.
Of course, he said, he’s aware at times of what is said on social media, or on radio, on TV, on websites and in newspapers.
“It’s human nature,” he said. Sometimes it’s difficult to ignore what’s being said.
Pettersson finds ways to get his mind off hockey with his friends. That’s in person here in Vancouver, but that’s also sometimes online, where he can catch up with friends in Sweden. One of the main ways he connects with friends back home is playing video games, he said. FIFA and the new Call of Duty are the main focuses of his downtime, he said.
“I’m not a professional at it or anything, it’s a way to get my brain on something else,” he said. “I’m playing with my friends back in Sweden, to catch up with them. It’s a way for me to be myself, to relax. I enjoy it.”
As he’s matured, he’s become better at pushing aside outside pressure, at finding ways to let loose.
“His first season in pro hockey was with Timra, in Sweden’s second-division Allsvenskan.
Vaxjo was his second stop in pro hockey. He helped lead the Lakers to the Swedish Hockey League championship in 2018. And then there was the transition to the NHL last year.
He’s had success every step of the way. He has a relentless focus on making himself better on the ice and about finding mental rest when he’s off.
I could have bad games and still have three points, I could have good games and have zero points.