No one questions how good Elias Pettersson can be. But more people are starting to wonder if the Vancouver Canucks were wise to bet their future on him.
The opening weeks of the 2025–26 season have made that dependence impossible to miss. When Pettersson gets on the scoresheet, the Canucks win three out of four; when he doesn’t, they win one out of four.
It’s that simple — and that troubling.
Because for a player so central to everything Vancouver does, Pettersson just isn’t producing enough. And that shortfall becomes even more glaring when his contract enters the conversation. The Canucks are paying top-tier money for the player they drafted fifth overall back in 2017, yet in the season-plus since Pettersson signed his eight-year, $92.8 million deal in March 2024, the return has fallen well short of the investment.
Elias Pettersson’s Production Has Dropped Since Signing His Big Contract
A point-per-game player for much of his first six years in the NHL, Pettersson finished with just 45 points (15 goals, 30 assists) in 64 games a season ago, his first under the terms of the contract that paid him like a No. 1 center. And with Petterson’s slow start this season, scoring 4 points (1, 3) in eight games, the questions about his status as a top center in the league have only gotten louder.
“This is a long runway now of Elias Pettersson not playing up to his contract,” TSN analyst Frankie Corrado recently said. “This is a guy who makes $11.6 million, and now the question in Vancouver becomes, ‘Who can we put with him to get him going?’ For a guy that makes that much money, the question should be the other way around: Who can I put Elias Pettersson with to get them going? But now, they’re looking down at a situation where, do you put Evander Kane and Conor Garland on the same line as Elias Pettersson to drag him into the fight a little bit more? It’s concerning that they would be asking those questions about a guy who makes so much money and is the top centerman on a team that is quite thin down the middle of the ice.”
In fact, it’s getting close to the point where some NHL insiders believe the Canucks decision makers will start asking those questions about Pettersson’s future with the team. Appearing with British Columbia sports journalists Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal for “Donnie and Dhali – The Team” at cheknews.ca, former GM and current TSN analyst Craig Button wondered if Vancouver may just need to rip off the band-aid.
“He doesn’t get his game in order, we are going to be talking about him as a buyout candidate,” Button said.
During a recent episode of the “Frankly Hockey” podcast, NHL analyst Frank Seravalli also acknowledged that as a possibility, downplaying the suggestion that the Canucks could trade Pettersson, who might benefit from a “change of scenery.”
“Change of scenery?” Seravalli scoffed. “No one’s gonna take him on, what you’re talking about is a buyout next year, obviously that’s a long ways off, I think you’re stuck in the meantime; you pray he somehow finds some confidence.”
Such a move would be a sizeable hit to the team’s salary cap. According to PuckPedia’s buyout calculator, a buyout of Pettersson prior to the 2026-27 season would result in a cap hit that starts out at $2.75 million for the first year, then goes to $4.3 million in Year 2 and $6.5 million in year 3, before topping out at $10 million for the next three seasons. All for a player that would no longer be on the roster.
Elias Pettersson’s Struggles Spur Whispers for Vancouver to Consider a Buyout
For such a seemingly hyperbolic suggestion to be made so soon after signing his long-term deal is staggering, not to mention unprecedented, as PuckPedia analyst Kevin Kavanaugh noted on a recent post to X (formerly Twitter):
“The fall off of Elias Pettersson will need to be studied for generations. …
“Year 1 of the deal he had 45 points in 64 games. Year 2 (this season) he has only 4 points in 8 games so far. Fans are already looking into how much a buyout would cost (hint: a lot).
“Hoping he starts to put it together, but something to monitor.”
In the meantime, the pundits will continue to monitor – and question – new Canucks coach Adam Foote’s usage of Pettersson.
Following the team’s 5-1 loss to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Donnie and Dhali showed a graphic indicating that Pettersson had the least amount of 5-on-5 ice time among Vancouver’s four centers, with only 9 minutes, 28 seconds, compared to Aatu Raty (15:06), Nils Aman (10:31), and Max Sasson (10:22). And on a night when Filip Chytil and Teddy Blueger were out with injuries, the show co-hosts were flabbergasted by those numbers.
“What are you doing?” Dhaliwal asked. “Why is Pettersson making 11.6? The other guys’ salaries, I think all three of those guys are under a million dollars.”
That hardly seems like a wise allocation of funds.
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