Elias Pettersson's slow start to the 2024-25 season drawing tons of criticism

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Cooper Godin
October 16, 2024 (8:24)

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Amid a slow start three games into the 2024-25 season, Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson is drawing criticism.

The Vancouver Canucks kicked off their three-game road trip in Tampa Bay on Tuesday night and spirits were high ending into the night. After two tough losses to start the year, the Canucks wanted to bounce back and get into the win column for the first time in 2024-25, however, the Tampa Bay Lightning had other plans.

Thanks to two-point nights from Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel, Nick Paul and Brayden Point, along with 26 saves from Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Vancouver Canucks in their home opener by a score of 4 to 1.

After the game, a lot of the talk was about Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson, who is having a slow start to the 2024-25 season and is drawing criticism for that, especially after his new contract with a salary of $11.6 million kicked in this campaign.

While on SC with Jay Onrait, former Vancouver Canucks defenceman Frankie Corrado was asked about Elias Pettersson and his struggles so far this season.

"Jay, right now he looks like a player who's trying to think his way through things, nothing really looks instinctual for him and I think that is leading to making the wrong decisions at times. Watching tonight's game, I can't fault the effort. Like you can see there are signs that it's maybe starting to turn the corner for him, but this is a guy who's being paid to be one of the best players in the NHL. He has to find that level of play which he had for the first half and a little more of last season. When you talk about the game that he's playing right now, he's not the fastest player, but he looks slow and then it looks like his decision making is a little bit slow as well. These are not things that you generally want to be saying about your number one centre and a guy who's supposed to be a big-time point producer for this team." Corrado said.

He added, "So if Pettersson doesn't get going to the level that he should be playing at, then the Vancouver Canucks are very likely to have a little bit of a points recession, nothing super significant, but at some point, it looks like he has to turn from a player who's thinking his way through the game, who just is instinctually playing his game and making the right decisions so he can help his team."

To start the season, Pettersson has registered just one assist and is a minus-one in three games. It's going to be interesting to see prior to tomorrow's game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers if Rick Tocchet decides to make any changes and if Elias Pettersson will have different linemates.

It's still very early and yes, there's still 79 games left on the Canucks' regular season schedule, but things need to get going here pretty quickly. Not just Elias Pettersson, but the entire team, as they need to come away with at least one win in the next couple of games on the road trip.