LATEST | Rick Tocchet gets blunt when asked about Elias Pettersson's play on Tuesday

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Cooper Godin
November 1, 2023 (7:09 PM)

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The Vancouver Canucks took on the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night for the second time in a week, and thanks to a hat-trick from forward Elias Pettersson, the team walked away with a 5-2 win.

Despite Pettersson's offensive performance on Tuesday night, Rick Tocchet was asked about his thoughts on how the Swedish forward played, given that he scored a hat-trick and the coach said he wasn't too pleased with the amount of turnovers he had.

"Yeah, he was turning the puck over a lot, though. He got three goals. I like that part, but he was one of the culprits for turning the puck over. We got to make sure he knows it, but getting the three goals that powerplay goal helped us. But we were having too many guys that were turning the puck over tonight." Tocchet said.

This is a good learning lesson for Elias Pettersson, and while, yes, he's an elite centerman in the NHL, he's still prone to making mistakes, but he needs to clean it up a little bit and not turnover the puck as often as he was last night against Nashville, as Tocchet said.

Pettersson's three goals were massive in getting the Canucks the win last night, as they improved to 6-2-1 (13 points) on the season, which currently has them in second place in the Pacific Division. In those nine games, the 24-year-old has 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) and is a plus-seven with no penalty minutes. There's no doubt that Pettersson is well on his way score over 100 points for the second consecutive season.

Pettersson and the Canucks will return on Thursday night as they take a quick trip down to Northern California to take on the San Jose Sharks at 7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET.