Pettersson only "untouchable" player as Canucks look for trade: report
The Vancouver Canucks might have a trade or two up their sleeve, but there’s one trade they supposedly won’t be making.
According to a report from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Elias Pettersson has been tabbed as the team’s lone “untouchable” on the trade market.
“They have indicated that they have one untouchable and that is [Elias] Pettersson,” Friedman said during last night’s 32 Thoughts segment on Hockey Night in Canada.
Pettersson has 13 goals, and 21 assists in 29 games this season. In his five seasons for the Canucks since being taken fifth overall in the 2017 draft, he has 110 goals and 145 assists in 274 regular season games.
Vancouver has had a whirlwind of trade rumours swirling around their team, most of which are stemming from the initial report of Bo Horvat rejecting the team’s contract offer and the team deciding to “focus” on trading their captain.
But that doesn’t particularly mean Vancouver is having a fire sale — just that they’re listening to offers.
“Now, I know what everybody’s going to start to say, what does that mean about Quinn Hughes?” Friedman added. “And what I was told is that the Canucks have said it would take an absolutely mammoth offer [to trade for Hughes].”
So even if Hughes, on year two of a six-year $41.5 million deal, isn’t deemed an “untouchable”, he doesn’t seem particularly likely to move either.
Pettersson is currently on the second year of a three-year, $22 million deal with the Canucks worth $7.35 million per season. And while his contract expires next summer, it seems like he’s interested in sticking around in Vancouver long-term.
“Yes, I know he doesn’t want to go anywhere,” Pettersson’s agent J.P. Barry said on a recent appearance on Donnie and Dhali — The Team with Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal. “There’s never been any discussion of anywhere else. He’s happy where he is, and we’ll have to find out what the financial part of the negotiation is I guess when the team is ready; but no, I am totally expecting that we’re going to be sitting down with Vancouver to talk about his future.”
Follow Channels and Categories