LOS ANGELES – Elias Pettersson. Artist. Playmaker. Scorer. Brute.
The 20-year-old Vancouver Canucks star unveiled a new weapon Wednesday night in his NHL arsenal, and it was him. All six-foot-two, 176 pounds of him. Call it the Petey Bomb.
Halfway through the second period and again in the third, Pettersson blew up Los Angeles Kings defenceman Alec Martinez.
The first hit, a few seconds after Pettersson had been slashed without penalty away from the puck by Jeff Carter, probably surprised Martinez.
But the veteran defenceman knew Pettersson was coming in the third period and got trucked again, bowled over by the second-year Swede, who collected the puck that spilled with Martinez to set up another Canucks scoring chance.
This was a game, dominated by the Canucks at even-strength and by their power play five-on-four, when Pettersson scored one goal and set up three others. A game when his linemate, Brock Boeser, recorded his third NHL hat trick and Vancouver improved to 8-1-1 in its last 10 games with a 5-3 victory that flattered Los Angeles.
And yet, for several reasons, it was those two hits when Elias Pettersson became a human missile that stood out.
They showed a level of confidence and physical engagement in Pettersson. They demonstrated a gifted player not only back to peak form, but growing up and getting stronger. And they were representative of – dare we say it? – a kind of swagger by the Canucks.
They believe they’re going to beat you. And since a 0-2 start to the regular season, they have been beating opponents in different ways. Mostly they’ve been doing it by outplaying, outshooting, out-chancing and outscoring the other team.
They’ve outshot the opposition in eight consecutive games and have pumped in five or more goals in four straight for the first time since 1996. Their four power-play goals on Wednesday (on six chances) were the Canucks most since “Game 8” against the Boston Bruins in 2012.
So bombs away.
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“He was running guys over tonight; I didn’t give him any tips on that,” linemate J.T. Miller said of Pettersson. “It was awesome. He was super-engaged in the game today; it was a huge part of it. You see a guy who’s typically not a physical guy, playing with an edge like that? It’s a big part of the game.”
“The bench got loud after that one,” defenceman Tyler Myers said. “You can tell the guys are engaged. Petey is playing well right now and we just want to make sure the group keeps playing the same way, no matter how much success we’re having or if things go bad in a game. It’s a mindset of coming the same way every shift.”
The Canucks outshot the Kings, who hadn’t been outshot this season, 49-24 at the Staples Center. They dominated early, yet trailed for most of the first period because Carter scored at 3:53 the first time the Kings managed to cross the Vancouver blue-line with the puck.
It didn’t matter. The Canucks just kept playing, forcing the puck into the Kings’ end and drawing penalties against the team Vancouver beat 8-2 at home three weeks earlier.
Veteran King Drew Doughty, perhaps unaware of the year and team trajectories, complained after that game that “a team like that shouldn’t be beating a team like ours 8-2.”
How about 5-3?
“We wanted to have a good game tonight,” Canuck captain Bo Horvat said Wednesday. “I think we’ve proven to him, and we’ll keep proving, we’re a great hockey team.”
Nobody was better than Pettersson and Boeser, who deliciously completed his hat trick 55 seconds into the third period by banking his centring pass in off Doughty to make it 4-2.
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Each struggled at times in October to reach top form. But here we are after 12 games, and Pettersson has four goals and 18 points, and Boeser seven goals and 14 points. Pettersson is only the second Canuck in 50 years – Henrik Sedin was the first – to register 14 assists in October. Twelve of them were primary assists, including the 120-foot, diagonal stretch pass that sent Boeser in to score on a breakaway that put the Canucks ahead 3-2 at 15:17 of the second period.
“I think we’re getting our confidence back and we’re playing the right way,” Boeser said. “People don’t understand the second year is a lot tougher than the first year. Petey’s having to fight for every inch of that ice. He’s learning and still producing for our team.”
As far as the combat, Pettersson claimed he wasn’t angry at Carter when he hit Martinez the first time. And the second hit, he said, was simply a way of creating a turnover and generate a scoring chance.
“I think everyone was shocked, including me,” he said of the first hit. “I just tried to put pressure, tried to forecheck the guy and I think he didn’t know I was kind of behind him.”
Does physicality help his game?
“I don’t know, maybe it’s a bad thing,” Pettersson joked. “Maybe now they expect it.”
Teams should expect a lot from the Canucks these days. On Wednesday, their power play scored twice in two minutes in opposite formations near the end of the first period. Switching back to their off-wings, Pettersson was able to one-time a pass cross-ice to Boeser. Then, back on their forehand sides, Boeser created enough space for a Quinn Hughes point shot that Horvat deflected in.
“The longer you play on the power play and play together in the league, you learn different nuances, even during a power play (with) what the penalty kill is doing,” Canuck coach Travis Green said. “I think they’re starting to adjust to that.”
• The Canucks may have to adjust Friday to playing the Anaheim Ducks without winger Micheal Ferland, who left the game in the first period with an “upper-body” injury after a staged fight – off a faceoff, following a television timeout – with Kyle Clifford.
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