Canucks' Pettersson on pace for painful record-breaking season
Getting hit by a puck hurts.
NHL players regularly fire the frozen rubber disc at speeds upwards of 90 miles per hour. Goaltenders cover themselves head to toe in heavy-duty pads to protect themselves from the puck, and they still occasionally get bruises from hard shots.
Skaters have far more limited protection, which is why those forwards and defencemen who throw themselves in front of pucks get so much respect from their teammates.
When Vancouver Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson was a player, he was renowned for his shot blocking, which led to so many injuries that medical professionals marvelled at the bruising on his legs.
“The team doctors actually asked me if they could take some pictures of a few of them because they wanted to be able to show their patients,” said Johnson back in 2008. “I’ve had a couple of shots that actually split me open, and they have had to suture me up. But I don’t mind the bangs and bruises. I take great pride in it.”
Johnson must also be proud of Elias Pettersson.
Pettersson not only leads the Canucks in scoring with 18 points in 17 games, but he also leads all NHL forwards in blocked shots.
Pettersson has 24 blocked shots, three more than the next best forward.
In fact, Pettersson is on pace to set a new record for the most blocked shots by an NHL forward — at least, since the NHL started tracking blocked shots in the 2005-06 season.
The record currently belongs to Alex Tuch of the Buffalo Sabres, who blocked 113 shots in the 2024-25 season.
Pettersson came close to the record last season, blocking 108 shots — three more than Johnson’s career-high of 105 blocked shots in 2007-08 — but missed eight games to injury that held him back from beating Tuch. It’s still the third-most blocked shots ever by an NHL forward.
This season, with an average of 1.41 blocks per game, Pettersson is on pace for an NHL-record 118 blocks.
Pettersson’s predilection for blocking shots has always been the best argument against those who claim he doesn’t care or stopped trying when his point totals started to dry up.
Why would someone who doesn’t care cause themselves so much pain by putting their body in front of so many pucks?
Pettersson even went so far as to fill in for his goaltender in empty-net situations last season, dropping down into a butterfly to block shots.
I swear, Elias Pettersson missed his true calling as a goaltender. #Canucks pic.twitter.com/EprxGTOQk5
— Daniel Wagner (@passittobulis) January 24, 2026
To be clear, it would be preferable for Pettersson to spend more time in the offensive zone and not need to block so many shots.
As hockey analytics writer Kent Wilson once said, “Blocking shots is like killing rats. Doing it is preferable to not, but if you’re doing it all the time it suggests you have bigger problems.”
But the rebuilding Canucks are not going to be a strong puck-possession team this season. Pettersson leads the Canucks in expected goals percentage at 48.3 per cent at 5-on-5, but that still means the Canucks are being outchanced and outshot when he’s on the ice.
So, with that in mind, it’s preferable for Pettersson to keep killing those rats, and it could mean a new NHL record by the end of the season.