Welcome Matt: Canucks should try Kessel on Pettersson's line
Hear me out, Canucks fans: Phil Kessel with Elias Pettersson.
Not right away, of course. He’ll first need to be signed, conditioned and eased into the NHL lineup.
But Rick Tocchet and his staff have tried Ilya Mikheyev, Pius Suter, and now Nils Höglander granted the latter with good results and not gotten the best out of Petey.
Because otherwise: where does Kessel fit in this Canucks lineup? He’s not a fourth-line profile. He’s not a banger or crasher, not a forechecker or traditional checker.
So, while I have high hopes for the all-Swedish line of Pettersson, Höglander, and Elias Lindholm, if Hoggy isn’t going to be trusted to log heavy minutes with his linemates — he played just 10:41 Monday in Chicago — then why not try Phil the Thrill?
He’s played 1,286 NHL games and is eight points away from being the 99th player in league history to record 1,000 points.
And look, it’s quite possible that Kessel’s postseason fate with the Canucks mirrors his last season with Vegas. He played all 82 regular season games with the Golden Knights, then just four times afterward.
Come the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he was behind glass — break in case of emergency. And if that’s the case with Vancouver, so be it.
He cost them nothing to acquire and should be cheap enough that he doesn’t preclude acquiring further depth by the March 8 trade deadline.
So with 28 regular season games left (it’ll be fewer once Kessel debuts) let’s see the three-time Cup champion and Pettersson together. Might kickstart that line’s even-strength scoring, and if Lindholm is the other player completing the trio, it should hold its own defensively.
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