Canucks’ Pettersson relieved after hitting 100: ‘I can breathe out again’

ANAHEIM, Calif. – It was only in the first half of last season, a little more than a year ago, when it seemed some nights like Elias Pettersson might never score again.

Coming back from a troublesome wrist injury that ended his pandemic season in 2021, the Vancouver Canuck star managed only six goals and 17 points in his first 37 games last year. Some heretics in Canucks Nation even suggested he should be traded.

Fifteen months later, on Tuesday, Pettersson became just the sixth player in franchise history to register triple-digit scoring in a season as a pair of assists in the Canucks’ 3-2 victory against the Anaheim Ducks boosted the 24-year-old to 101 points in 79 games.

Pettersson is just the 12th Swede to reach the century mark in a National Hockey League season, beaten by one day over the threshold by San Jose Sharks defenceman Erik Karlsson.

But the thing is with Pettersson, 100 points isn’t the end of something. It feels like the start.

“Yeah, I’d like to think so,” he told reporters in the Canucks dressing room. “I was striving to get better and evolving every day and every season, so I’m very happy with what I’ve accomplished so far this year, but I always like to think I’ve got another gear in me.”

Frustrated at the lack of forecheckers digging out pucks for Pettersson in recent games, including Monday’s 3-0 loss in Los Angeles, Canucks coach Rick Tocchet broke glass in case of emergency and moved second-line centre J.T. Miller to Pettersson’s wing.

Along with Miller’s usual winger, Phil DiGiuseppe, the line had two scoring chances on its first shift. But it wasn’t until Vancouver’s first power play that Pettersson became the first Canuck to reach 100 points since Daniel Sedin won the NHL scoring title in 2011.

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Miller lasered a cross-ice pass to Pettersson, who relayed it back the other way just as quickly to his friend, Brock Boeser, who swept it into a semi-open net at 12:14 before Anaheim goalie Lukas Dostal could react.

“It happened too fast, I couldn’t think about,” Boeser said. “If I had more time to think about it, I probably would have missed.

“We all knew for a couple of games now that it was right there, and every chance Petey got we were on our toes on the bench. He had a lot of looks there before that power play, so we’re all really excited and knew it was going to come tonight. It’s such a cool accomplishment. I’m sure he’s going to do it again in his career.”

Boeser and Miller, who was held to a single point in his final game last season and finished with 99, led the on-ice celebration. Boeser might not have had time to think about what scoring would mean to his friend, but immediately retrieved the puck for Pettersson and ordered him to lead the fist-bump parade past the Vancouver bench.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Miller said. “It meant a lot to him. I was joking with him earlier there last year, when I was close (to 100 points), that the coach never put him on my line to get it. He’s been our best player all year, him and Quinn (Hughes) leading the way. It would have been a shame to see him not get it, but there was no doubt he was going to get it. I’m super happy for him.”

“I mean, I wasn’t the coach,” Pettersson said, smiling, when asked about not playing with Miller when his teammate was trying for 100 points a year ago. “I would love to help him.”

Asked what the achievement means to him, Pettersson said: “It means that I can breathe out again. I’m very happy with it. It’s something I didn’t think about before this season.”

Said Tocchet: “To see how happy his teammates were for him to get the milestone … when you don’t make the playoffs, you look for those small victories, and to have a guy who gets 100 points, it’s nice. I love that Petey got it. But it’s better if we start having more team goals than the individual stats for me.”

Yes, the Canucks are going to miss the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years.

Tuesday’s win moved Vancouver past the Washington Capitals and Detroit Red Wings into 23rd in the overall standings, tied on points with the St. Louis Blues with one game remaining.

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MIDDLE MEN

With Miller elevated to the top line and switched to the wing, the Canucks’ four centres on Tuesday were Pettersson, Nils Aman, Sheldon Dries and Jack Studnicka. Pettersson has 101 points this season, the other three centres have 41 points combined.

But front-loading the lines worked, and Dries, especially, was rewarded for his gritty game on Monday by playing with talented wingers Kuzmenko and Conor Garland on the third line. A heathy scratch the previous two games, rookie winger Aidan McDonough returned to the fourth line beside Studnicka and opposite Anthony Beauvillier.

PASS-HAPPY

There was outstanding passing by Miller and Pettersson on Boeser’s goal, but the pass of the game was delivered by rookie Akito Hirose, whose 100-foot guided missile sprung Andrei Kuzmenko on a first-period breakaway that ended with the first-year Russian scoring his 39th goal of the season with a clinical five-hole finish.

Benched in the third period two games ago (before scoring Saturday’s shootout winner against the Calgary Flames), Kuzmenko scored for the second time in seven games. The 26-year-old, a year too old to qualify as an NHL rookie, is the highest-scoring first-year player in team history and will try to be the 10th Canuck to reach 40 goals in a season when Vancouver finishes its season Thursday in Arizona.

For Hirose, whose first NHL excursion has been remarkable considering he is an undrafted, 170-pound college free agent from Minnesota State, it was his third assist in six games. Tocchet has entrusted him with 17:18 of average ice time, which has included duty on the power play, penalty kill and in overtime.

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UNSUNG HERO

Miller scored the winning goal for the Canucks with a power-play rebound tap-in from DiGiuseppe’s one-timer. But the key player in the third period was Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko, who made a stunning rebound save on Jakob Silfverberg early in the period and stopped Adam Henrique from the slot on a late Anaheim power play.

With backup Collin Delia scheduled to start Game 82 in Arizona, this was the end of Demko’s season. After a poor start and then a groin tear that cost him the middle three months of the season, Demko started 17 of the Canucks’ last 22 games, winning 11 and posting a .918 save rate. Vancouver’s starting goaltending is just fine heading into next season.

“As a coach, you’re comfortable when you’ve got a guy like that in your nets,” Tocchet said. “A couple of post-to-post saves that he made were big tonight. Especially early, when there wasn’t much happening for him, and then all of a sudden there’s a barrage, so I think the focus level with Demmer is just incredible.”

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