Elias Pettersson
Vancouver Canucks Defense
Twenty-eight games at 20 from a third-round pick who arrived two years ahead of schedule.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | VAN | 28 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -4 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.3 | 12:49 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 28 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -4 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.3 | 12:49 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
1 goal and 2 assists in 28 games — 3 points at 12:49 a night, minus-4, with 17 penalty minutes. They were the first NHL games of his career, at 20.
48.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 34th percentile, across 296 minutes. His ice went 6-10 against an expectation of 10.44-11.16, which on a sample that size says nothing at all.
The Finesse Game
19 attempts in 28 games at a median of 55 feet with 79 per cent from beyond 40 and 5 per cent from inside 20, and 1 goal. He shoots from the blue line and nowhere else.
2 assists. The first pass is simple and mostly correct, and he does not attempt anything that becomes a rush the other way. That is the right decision at 20 and it is not yet a puck game.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 185 and still filling out. He finishes checks, he defends the front of his own net, and he is not yet strong enough to move a grown forward out of it.
17 penalty minutes in 28 games is a slightly high rate and most of it is the stick foul of a defenceman playing at the edge of his speed.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2022 — 80th overall — and he shares a name with the club’s highest-paid forward, which is the sort of coincidence that follows a player around.
28 NHL games. He is 21, he was expected to need two more American League seasons, and he did not.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 296 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.3%
- 34th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.3%
- 57th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 6 for, 10 against. Expected: 10.4 and 11.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 296 minutes at five-on-five
- Filip Hronek26%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.3% — 0.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 296 minutes at five-on-five — 6th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brock Boeser | 45.8% | 49.4% | 48.8% |
| Filip Hronek | 52.9% | 46.0% | 52.4% |
| Drew O'Connor | 40.1% | 51.8% | 51.6% |
45.8% together, 49.4% for him apart and 48.8% for Boeser apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
43 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 79% from beyond forty.