Welcome Matt: Canucks would be wise to quiet the noise on Pettersson situation

I can understand why Vancouver Canucks management and ownership are frustrated with Elias Pettersson.

What I can’t understand is why they’re baiting him.

Yes, it helps deadline planning and team building if the Canucks know Pettersson is willing to sign an extension this summer. Knowing Pettersson will be back gives them peace of mind, and allows them to target non-rentals by March 8, players they can fit in a cap structure that pays Petey $12 million-plus going forward.

But that’s a nice-to-do. It’s not a need-to-do.

Remember, this is the same management group that kept repeating that they had him for two more seasons of club control and pushed back on the urgency of this file.

Now, it seems, someone with the Canucks is feeling the urgency and venting in the back channels.

The nugget from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman this weekend that teams are calling and asking about Pettersson, I just don’t see how that helps the environment.

Does it not accelerate the process? Speak it into existence, so to speak?

As we know, Pettersson doesn’t like noise. And the Canucks are creating noise.

Now, perhaps this is simply the messy process of contract negotiations playing out in public, and driven by an irregular situation. You don’t often get restricted free agents refusing to sign $100 million contracts and playing coy about their reasons or intentions with the simple response: “After the season.”

And so the wondering about Pettersson’s hesitancy skips over the financials and heads into areas like organizational culture, teammates, fishbowl market, and the franchise’s past sins — of which there are many.

Because team performance — organizational performance — has done its part this year. And I know many fans, not to mention Canucks Sports & Entertainment, would feel lousy if he rejected the franchise after a season like this.

At this point, the Canucks need to do two things:

1. Say nothing. Give him his wish of negotiations after the season and no drama until then. Don’t treat the trade deadline like a hard deadline, and stop belly-aching to insiders.

And…

2. Start plotting summer trade proposals if he doesn’t want to stay. At this stage, indigestible as that may be, it’s a managerial requirement.

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