Quinn Hughes wanted to play for the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night against the Detroit Red Wings.
The Canucks captain suffered an apparent lower-body injury in the team’s last game against the Dallas Stars but he gamely took the ice for warm-up to test things out. It was a high-energy warm-up for Hughes and he recruited Elias Pettersson the Younger for some battle drills along the boards to see how it held up.
After some long conversations with the training staff at the bench, it was decided that Hughes wasn’t going to play.
“He wanted to gut it out,” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “But it was not the smartest play to play him. You know him, he wants to play in every game. In 48 hours, we’ll see how he is.”
Hughes’ health is a major concern for the Canucks going forward, so it’s hopefully a positive that he even felt up for taking the ice for warm-up. If any positives can be drawn from Hughes being a late scratch, the biggest is that all three Petterssons on the roster got to be in the lineup together for the first time, which was a lot of fun.
It was time for maximum confusion, as Elias Pettersson, Elias Pettersson, and Marcus Pettersson all took the ice for the Canucks. Elias Pettersson Classic got to have just “Pettersson” on the back of his #40 jersey, while New Coke Elias Pettersson got “E. Pettersson” with his #25 and Marcus Pettersson got “M. Pettersson” with his #29.
Elias Pettersson, Elias Pettersson, and Marcus Pettersson on the Vancouver Canucks pic.twitter.com/tVIb1O27Yg
— jake ッ (@aristhought) February 3, 2025
Regrettably, the three Petterssons spent just 12 seconds on the ice simultaneously, though that’s understandable when two of them are left-shot defencemen.
Three Petterssons — two of them with the same first name — presented a challenge for play-by-play man John Shorthouse that he handled as professionally as always. It was more of a challenge for the players and coaching staff.
Tocchet had to repeatedly clarify which Pettersson he was talking about in his postgame press conference, eventually landing on “Pittsburgh Petey” and “Junior Petey” for Marcus and Elias, respectively. The players, needing shorter nicknames, couldn’t just call all three of them “Petey.”
Marcus, at least, has his “Dragon” nickname from Pittsburgh that his former Penguins teammate Drew O’Connor brought with him but the younger Elias also needed a new alias.
“I got a new nickname today,” said the second Pettersson. “I don’t want to share it. I’m gonna come up with a new one because I don’t like it.”
Elias “Nickname Pending” Pettersson said that he got word he was playing in the morning, which suggests the coaching staff had a strong suspicion Hughes wasn’t going to be ready to go.
There was another positive in Hughes missing the game: the Canucks played pretty dang well in his absence.
Don’t get me wrong, they obviously missed Hughes, but they also outshot the Red Wings 27-to-18 and completely shut down the Red Wings’ access to the slot. By Natural Stat Trick’s reckoning, the Red Wings had just two high-danger chances all game. The Canucks had 14.
“I thought we controlled the game,” said Tocchet.
The only trouble was that control didn’t turn into enough goals to get the win, as the Canucks suffered their 11th overtime/shootout loss of the season. Still, that didn’t shake the confidence of the newest Canucks.
“I believe, if we’re gonna play like this, most nights we’ll get two points,” said Filip Chytil, who scored one of the Canucks’ two goals in his debut with his new team.
I wished that I shared Chytil’s faith after I watched this game.
- It needs to be addressed: Canucks fans booed the American national anthem vociferously prior to the game, much like fanbases in other Canadian cities have done in the wake of President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada. There was some hemming and hawing about how the Canucks’ American players might feel about it but let’s be blunt: booing the anthem is a pretty minor response to the American president threatening to annex their closest ally and the Canucks players ought to be able to understand exactly at whom those boos were aimed.
- It was a strong debut for the new Canucks, as Filip Chytil and Drew O’Connor were two of the Canucks’ best forwards, Marcus Pettersson was solid in nearly 26 minutes of ice time, and Victor Mancini — well, he got to skate in the warm-up and, judging from Noah Juulsen’s ice time, might get a chance to get in a game in the near future, so it was arguably a pretty successful game for him too.
- The Elias Pettersson with longer hair picked up his first NHL point on the Canucks’ opening goal. Kiefer Sherwood retrieved the puck down low after a centring pass was blocked and shook free of Justin Holl to feed Pettersson at the point. With traffic at the net, Pettersson wasted no time getting a shot off and Pius Suter deftly deflected it five-hole on Alex Lyon.
- In a way, Pius Suter is one of the most consistent goalscorers in the NHL. Every season, no matter how many games he plays, he scores 14 goals, except for one where he scored 15. His opening goal on Sunday was his 14th of the season; one more and he matches his career high.
- “I don’t think too much about it,” said Suter. “Had this [many goals] before with also missing some games…I’m just trying to go out there and help the team and not really thinking about going out there, ‘Oh, next one’s the career high’ or something.”
- As for the subaltern Pettersson, he had a phenomenal game by the underlying numbers to go with his assist. Shot attempts were 25-to-7 for the Canucks when he was on the ice and shots on goal were 14-to-2. He heavily tilted the ice, perhaps because he’s also the heaviest Pettersson at 209 lbs.
- “We like him a lot,” said Tocchet. “Thought he played good tonight. Some of his shots from the point, he’s got a heavy shot, and he’s a thick guy. So, a lot to build off.”
- The Red Wings responded on a 3-on-2 rush. With Andrew Copp running quite literal interference on Tyler Myers up the middle, Alex DeBrincat was able to cut into the high slot and fool Kevin Lankinen with a shot past the blocker. Myers protested to the referee but, like with most protests, the governing officials sided with the Copp.
- It’s hard to overstate just how refreshing it was to see Filip Chytil rushing the puck up ice, like diving into a cold pool on the hottest day of summer. At one point in the first period, Chytil picked up the puck below his own goal line, stickhandled through three Red Wings players, and drove end-to-end to loop behind the Detroit goal. He then set up Conor Garland for a one-timer that Garland unfortunately fanned on but that takes nothing away from the rush of the rush.
- It was blatantly obvious that the two new forwards, Chytil and Drew O’Connor, were the team’s best forwards in transition, as they repeatedly gained the offensive zone with possession of the puck while other forwards dumped the puck in. It was so noticeable, in fact, that you had to wonder if they were carrying the puck so much because it hasn’t been coached out of them.
- “They’ve got speed, right?” said Tocchet. “To be a good rush team, you’ve got to have speed. We just added two guys that have a lot of speed and they understand, too, getting off the wall and getting the puck in the middle. Hopefully, that’s contagious.”
- O’Connor immediately found some chemistry with his spiritual sibling, Kiefer Sherwood, as they both share the same penchant for speed and forechecking. I’m not about to anoint them the new Bash Brothers, but their line with Suter was dominant all night, with a 6-to-1 advantage in shots on goal. The only issue was that the one shot against went into the Canucks’ net.
- On Detroit’s second goal, Pettersson (est. 2004) made a nice play under pressure to move the puck up the boards but O’Connor couldn’t get the puck out of the defensive zone. Moments later, a Ben Chiarot point shot found the back of the net past Lankinen, who couldn’t see past Juulsen, who couldn’t have screened Lankinen better if he was trying.
- Three of the Canucks’ four forward lines looked great in this game. Unfortunately, the one that didn’t was their top line of Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser. The three just weren’t clicking through the first two periods, as the wingers were playing a dump-and-chase game that just led to frequent turnovers, while when they did get rush chances, they often missed the net. They looked a lot better in the third but still couldn’t get enough of their chances on net.
- “We had the three-on-one, we had a couple two-on-ones — we’re missing the net,” said Tocchet after I asked about the Pettersson line. “We’ve got to hit the net; we’ve got to make those moments count.”
- The Pettersson line came alive in the third period as they finally started gaining the offensive blue line with possession of the puck. Four minutes into the third, Tyler Myers made a slick pass to Pettersson for a clean breakout and he made a fantastic cross-ice pass to Boeser. Unfortunately, instead of taking the shot, Boeser tried to force a pass to DeBrusk, who was more tied up than bbno$ collaborating with Smosh.
- That’s a pass that suggests Boeser is in his head, perhaps preoccupied with the 3-on-1 he had in the second period where he kept the puck and shot it but completely missed the net with Dakota Joshua waiting for a pass to tap the puck in. He shot when he should’ve passed and passed when he should’ve shot.
- Chytil tied the game midway through the third period. Garland gained the zone, then got hooked from behind and had his stick slashed out of his hands. As he held his hands up to the referee, wondering what it would take for the Canucks to get their first power play of the game, Chytil nabbed the loose puck, cut through the slot like a hot knife through butter, then snapped the puck past Lyon.
- Best part of the goal might have been his celebration, as he turned to the crowd with his best “Let’s ****ing go!” expression and fully embraced his new fans.
- “There were some players in front of me and even some guys behind trying to strip the puck from me,” said Chytil. “I saw that there was just not an open lane to shoot right away, so I was holding it as long as I could. I’m happy that it went in…It meant a lot to me in that moment. It was so many emotions in my head.”
- The elder Elias Pettersson played just 15 seconds with Nils Höglander but, in those 15 seconds, they helped create one of the Canucks’ best chances of the game. Pettersson gained the offensive zone, then drew three Red Wings skaters to himself as he spotted Höglander coming off the bench. Pettersson saucered a pass into space for Höglander to skate onto and he swung the puck in front to Boeser, who unfortunately had his stick checked just as he was about to shoot.
- I’m not saying this definitively proves Höglander should play with Pettersson, but that’s more chemistry on one play than I’ve ever seen at any point between Pettersson and DeBrusk.
- There was just one penalty called in this game, with the Red Wings getting the lone power play. It’s not like Detroit played a squeaky clean game, either, as there was the interference on Myers on their first goal and an even more blatant interference on Pettersson (est. 1998) late in the third period. I don’t know how a referee can watch Moritz Seider full-on bodycheck Pettersson away from the puck and not call a penalty.
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- That’s not even mentioning that the one penalty was incredibly soft, as Jonatan Berggren seemed to just lose an edge while engaged with Derek Forbort on a first-period rush. At least it led to John Shorthouse’s best joke of the night, as he quipped, “This will actually be a two-and-a-half minute power play for the Detroit Red Wings due to the 25% tariff that has been imposed on penalties to Canadian-based teams.” Dave Tomlinson let some wonderfully awkward dead space follow the joke before adding a deadpan, “Seems excessive.”
- The Canucks lost in overtime when Garland passed up a chance to shoot from the slot and instead sent a pass into the skates of Chytil, who was below the goal line at the time — generally not the best shooting position. The Red Wings broke the other way for a 3-on-2 and Garland got caught in no man’s land, neither in the shooting lane or the passing lane to prevent Lucas Raymond from setting up DeBrincat with an open net.
- Here’s a thought: if the Canucks are going to be playing in such tight games all season, they should maybe devote a practice or two to how to play 3-on-3. They now have 4 wins and 11 losses after regulation. Even just three more wins in overtime would have the Canucks in a playoff spot right now.
