DETROIT — With 505 games in the National Hockey League, Elias Pettersson has experienced a good deal as a player. But like most 27-year-old players, he hasn’t yet accumulated much life experience outside of hockey.
Until five weeks ago, for example, the Vancouver Canucks centre had not known the heart-crushing loss of someone close to him. Then Pettersson and his new wife, Katelyn, lost their unborn baby, who was due in July. On Dec. 4, she shared news of her miscarriage on social media.
The next night, Pettersson was injured in a 4-1 loss against the Utah Mammoth. Pettersson missed the next eight games due to the undisclosed upper-body injury, but was dealing with more than that privately.
“Yeah, it’s been hard, honestly,” he said Wednesday after practising in Detroit for Thursday’s game against the Red Wings. “As a married guy now, I couldn’t be happier with Katelyn. Obviously, it’s very emotional. It’s not what you expect to happen; you don’t think it’s going to happen to you. It’s tough, but that’s life.”
Six games into his return, and still trying to locate that elite form that had him in the top-10 in NHL scoring two calendar years ago, Pettersson became emotional when asked about the couple’s loss.
He and Katelyn were married in June.
“I’m not going to sit here and make everyone feel bad for me; we’re not the only ones this has happened to,” he said. “But it is tough.
“When Katelyn posted about it, just the amount of people who reached out and shared their own stories, that helped us a lot.”
A social-media influencer who seems as comfortable in the spotlight as her husband is wary of it at times, Katelyn Pettersson also posted a clip of the couple taking a twirl on the ice at Rockefeller Center during the Canucks’ pre-Christmas trip to New York.
The problem, at least optically, was that Pettersson was still injured. He joined the Canucks on the five-game trip. But while his status was considered day-to-day throughout the excursion, he did not play again until after Christmas.
The brief video got the Canucks’ attention.
“Him and I had a talk about it after the fact,” head coach Adam Foote said Wednesday. “I was just giving him advice, like, ‘Hey, when you’re injured, maybe stay away from the social media part.’ I think young guys, we have to teach them that. . . just to keep the noise away.”
After Pettersson had a miserable season last year under previous coach Rick Tocchet, who along with general manager Patrik Allvin was critical of the player’s preparation, Foote made it a priority when he became coach in May to reach out to Pettersson and start building a relationship.
The two have had a lot of conversations since then, including one soon after the miscarriage.
“He’s shared it, we’ve discussed it, and we support him on that,” Foote explained. “It’s not easy. When you’re married or you have a family, you’re married to the game first unless someone’s sick or ill or you lose a baby or (become) a father. Then it becomes. . . we’re all human. That would jolt any man, I think. And that kind of affects guys, for sure.
“As you get older, probably more things happen. Everyone deals with it in their own way, however long that takes. Him and I had a discussion about it. It would jolt him, for sure. (But) every year, there’s things that go on behind the scenes that not everyone knows, that are real. It’s part of life.”
And life can be complicated.
After struggling initially upon his return from injury, Pettersson has been better over the last four games. Including a night of analytics dominance in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins last Saturday, Pettersson has made the Canucks the stronger team when he’s on the ice.
Despite losing all four games, the Canucks have outshot opponents 36-18 with Pettersson playing at five-on-five. Naturalstattrick.com has high-danger scoring chances 19-5 for Vancouver during Pettersson’s time on ice.
Before he was injured, Pettersson had his best month since signing a team-record $92.8-million contract nearly two years ago — an agreement that reflected the expectations the Canucks had for their franchise centre.
Pettersson had 14 points in 12 games in November, was leading all NHL forwards in blocked shots and was digging in physically and competing in his nightly matchups against the opposition’s top centre.
He has scored in the last two games, but with 11 goals and 15 assists in 34 games overall, Pettersson is generating points at roughly the same rate he did during his dismal 45-point season a year ago — 0.76 points per game instead of 0.70. But the centre’s underlying defensive numbers are solid.
“I think I was doing okay,” Pettersson said. “But injuries happen. Now that I’m back, I’m just trying to work my hardest out there and play the right way.
“It’s going to be a nagging injury for a while, probably the rest of the season. But I can play with it. In some situations, there’s some pain but I can push through it.”
Foote believes the four-day NHL holiday break, when players were mainly off the ice, set back Pettersson and his skating. The coach said he is starting to see more energy from his top forward.
While Pettersson was injured, the organization underwent a seismic shift on Dec. 12 when the trade of defenceman Quinn Hughes forced management to further pivot towards a rebuild. It also left Pettersson and goalie Thatcher Demko as the last players remaining from the glittering, early-20s core that Allvin and Canucks president Jim Rutherford inherited four years ago.
Centres J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat were traded in previous seasons.
The Canucks also looked before and after last year’s trade deadline at the market for Pettersson. Although the Swede’s no-movement clause activated on July 1, Rutherford would be prudent to plumb the market again before the March 6 deadline this season.
“I think it naturally puts more on to me,” Pettersson said of the exit of core players. “And Demko and Brock (Boeser) and Fil (Hronek). But it is what it is. We can’t look in the past. We can only work ahead and (see) where we can do better, and take this group to the next level.”
Of the Canucks rapid course change, he said: “I mean, I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. Obviously, I want to battle and I want to play in the playoffs. But we need to see what’s best for our future and build long-term.”
Foote still believes Pettersson can be an elite centre. But he must embrace that challenge and want that responsibility.
“If you’re lucky enough to become a part of a core with any group, whether it’s hockey or any sport, yeah, you should feel that responsibility,” Foote said. “You should want to feel it. That’s what comes with it, right?
“Does he feel the heat? Well, he should feel it and should enjoy it. It’s part of what comes with being the core guy.”
ICE CHIPS — After the Canucks had a ragged start to Tuesday’s 5-3 loss in Buffalo and didn’t generate much pushback until they were down 4-0 in the third period, Wednesday’s practice consisted largely of battle drills before Foote gathered his players for a brief talk and then ordered them straight off the ice to get ready for the Red Wings. . . Filip Chytil was a partial participant in a non-contact jersey, but Teddy Blueger, who wore the red jersey in Buffalo, was not part of the group on Wednesday.
