How Canucks defence prospect Elias Pettersson has performed at World Juniors so far

Dec 31 2022, 1:25 am

In his first appearance at the World Juniors, 18-year-old Vancouver Canucks defence prospect Elias Pettersson is showing he belongs.

Every year, the World Juniors represents a unique opportunity for fans to get an extended look at their team’s most recently drafted prospects. The premier junior tournament brings together a collection of some of the best prospects the sport of hockey has to offer.

While the hype and coverage of the tournament can inflate the importance of these games, it’s still a great opportunity for prospects like Pettersson to show their mettle on a world stage.

Defensive game

The appeal of Pettersson’s game has always been his defensive play. In a post-draft breakdown, we identified the 6-foot-3 defender skating as being a catalyst for his game.

“The cornerstone of Petterssonā€™s ability to defend in transition all centres around his overwhelming mobility. A gifted skater who can match attackersā€™ speed with ease, the 2004-born defender exploits crossovers, heel-pushes, and near-perfect mechanics to maintain a proactive gap with oncoming attackers, all while steadying his feet to avoid being manipulated.”

This mobility has allowed the 196-pound defender to push a lot of aggression already in this World Junior tournament.

In this sequence against Germany, not only does Pettersson force a pass into pressure with a side-board guiding hit, but the Ɩrebro HK defender also harasses the net-front screen, and sends him flying on the near board retrieval. A supremely smart play from top to bottom.

Mitchell Brown and Lassi Alanen of Elite Prospects have been manually tracking each World Juniors game. Their data shows that through the first three games of the tournament, Pettersson is fourth in defensive impact among his Swedish teammates,Ā  second on the team in entries prevented, and third for breakups in the defensive zone.

The eye-test isn’t lying.

You really only get defensive impacts like this by pushing positive habits. In the clip below, Pettersson reads the off-puck threat driving and makes a smart pivot — made possible by his mobility and gap, and boxes out the Austrian attacker to the outside.

Even on this play, the left-shot blueliner identifies the Austrian attacker escaping coverage, and disrupts the pass into the crease with a well placed stick, again driving a puck retriever to the side boards, supporting the breakout. The less time spent in the defensive zone the better, and translating a stop into an exit is so important to set up counter-attacks.

One of Pettersson’s more eye-popping sequences in this tournament was this retrieval he made against Austria. The Swede pre-scans the forechecking pressure, wheels the net, threads a pass through pressure, and then jumps up into the rush to support and complete the exit, all while in motion.

The pace of play in the tournament has been a bit of an issue for Pettersson to process at times. Against Czechia, he struggled mightily with forechecking pressure early in the game. He lost board battles due to poor puck protection and allowed forecheckers to not only manipulate him with cutbacks, but also gain superior body positions.

Leveraging his frame better in these situations will come in time, an example of some of the challenges an 18-year-old can face in an under-20 tournament.

Offence in development

Part of the reason why many talent evaluators see Pettersson as a mid-pairing or bottom-pairing defender is because of his limited offensive game. While his tools are great; his passing and shooting grade at NHL-averages, and his habits are fairly underdeveloped in comparison to his defensive efforts. It’s been no different this World Juniors.

A static operator on the blue line, Pettersson rarely will handle to the middle, walk the blue line, or use deception to open up lanes. He fires pucks immediately on pass receptions, which in turn makes his shooting attempts easier to block, and less effective in general.

The tracked data shows that Pettersson is blue line leader in shots, but it’s easy to see why it hasn’t resulted in a ton of offence for Sweden, as many of his attempts are banking on chaos and rebound creation. It is a positive to see that he is contributing to shot creation at this level.

What to watch for

Pettersson will be leaned on heavily to help stop the buzzsaw that is Team Canada’s attack. Frankly, it could get ugly if he isn’t able to push the same habits he has displayed against Austria, Germany, and Czechia. Occupation of shot lanes, quick exits out of clean puck retrievals, and outside guiding will all be needed to limit Canada’s offence.

Team Sweden will take on Team Canada on New Year’s Eve and Pettersson will be eligible to play in the 2024Ā  World Juniors.

Daniel GeeDaniel Gee

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