Elias Pettersson is only 19 years of age yet he is playing a brand of dominating hockey that fans of the Vancouver Canucks have nit seen since Daniel and Henrik Sedin were young bucks.
It has taken Pettersson only 11 NHL games to capture the hearts and minds of hockey fans around the Big Blue Marble.
Pettersson has already scored 10 goals and 17 points in his first 11 games played. Amazingly, the slick Swede was held scoreless in Vancouver's 8-5 curb-stomping of the Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
Scoring 10 goals in your first 10 NHL games is pretty damn great!
In Vancouver's 8-5 blasting of the Bruins, Pettersson had one assist. He was trying to become fourth player since 1920-21 to score at least 11 goals through his first 11 NHL games (Don Murdoch, New York Rangers, 1976-77; Rob Gaudreau, San Jose Sharks, 1992-93; Teemu Selanne, Winnipeg Jets, 1992-93).
Pettersson became just the 17th player in NHL history to score 10+ goals through his first 10 career games, and just the fifth player to score outside of the NHL's inaugural season.
Pettersson is the only teenager in the last 30 seasons (1988-89 to present) to begin his NHL career with at least 10 goals through their first 10 career games played.
Pettersson is the first player to record 16+ points his first 10 career NHL games since 1992-93, when Dimitri Kvartalnov and Nikolai Borschevsky accomplished the feat.
Pettersson tied Esa Tikkanen and Mike Walton for the most points (16) by a player in their first 10 games as a member of the Canucks.
Pettersson has scored at least one point in each road game he's played this season with seven in five games.
I'm not surprised by Pettersson's prolific points production.
#Canucks rock star Elias Pettersson is all that and a bag of Swedish Fish. I studied his game closely at 2018 WJCs in Buffalo where he scored 5G,2A. Like Rasmus Dahlin, Lias Andersson, Pettersson was not happy with WJC silver. He's playing at gold standard in first 11 NHL games pic.twitter.com/ZFJB9IaBs2
I got my first glimpse of Pettersson last Christmas at the 2018 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships in Buffalo.
Pettersson dropped jaws and impressed the masses by deking, danging, celling and scoring 5 goals and 2 assists in 7 games played for the evntual silver medal winning Team Sweden at the U20 tourney.
Pettersson is the big man on campus as far as rookie scoring goes in the NHL. Six weeks into the 2018-19 season, Petterson is leading all rookie scorers with 10 goals and 7 assists in 11 games played.
On Saturday afternoon, Pettersson will return to Buffalo for the first time since he won the silver medal at the World Juniors. This kid is special. He skates well, has a bomb for a shot, is a fantastic passer and loves to score goal.
Rookie phenoms Rasmus Dahlin and Casey Mitteslastadt are not going to allow Pettersson to sneak through the back door and dunk on Jack Eichel, Jeff Skinner, and the upstart Sabres.
Dahlin is close friends with Pettersson having played with the sniper on Team Sweden. Dahlin, the first overall pick at the 2018 NHL Draft, has scored 1 goal and added 5 assists in his first 16 NHL games played.
Mittelstadt was the Tourney MVP at the 2018 World Juniors. The sniping forward has scored 2 goals and 4 assists thus far in 16 games played.
Its great to see the Canucks and Sabres playing so well this season.
If you want dangles, toe drags, snipes and cellys, you won't miss the Sabres-Canucks game on Saturday afternoon. The Sabres are 4-2-1 against the Pacific Division so far in 2018-19.
I'm pleading with the NHL league offices to go ahead and schedule a transcontinental showdown between the Sabres and Canucks for next season in Stockholm, Sweden. Imagine how sick it will be to watch the Class of 1970 teams, Sabres and Canucks, celebrate their respective 50th years of NHL srvice by playing in Sweden. Both teams boast high profile Swedish stars players.
After scoring his 10th and 11th goals of the season in the Sabres 6-5 OT win against the Canadiens, Jeff Skinner moved into the top five in the NHL in goals this season. With his 10th goal in the team’s 16th game of the season, he reached the 10-goal mark quicker than any Sabres player since Thomas Vanek (10 games) in 2012-13.
Only five players in Sabres franchise history have scored more goals through 16 games than Skinner’s current total:
Rick Martin (2x), Gilbert Perreault (2x), Thomas Vanek (2x), Dave Andreychuk, Danny Gare.
**
Speaking of Skinner, he and his linemates are hotter than Carolina Reaper Buffalo chicken wing sauce!
Skinner-Pominville-Eichel each rank in the top three in the NHL in points since the trio began playing together as a line on October 20 at LA.
In those nine games, Skinner has exploded for 10G,5A and Pominville 7G,7A while Eichel has erupted for 1G,13A. The power trio scored 2G,3A in the win against Montreal and have accumulated 43 points and counting.....
Eichel is tied for the NHL lead with seven multi-point games this season, 11 shy of his career-high 18 in a season. Skinner is tied for eighth with six, 10 shy of his career-high 16.
**
The Sabres are 3-7-0 in their last 10 games vs. the Canucks; 6-4-0 at home.
This is the 121st game all-time between Buffalo and Vancouver; Buffalo has a 49-52-19 series record.
The Sabres are 31-21-8 at home against the Canucks all-time.
Does your NHl team need a scoring right winger? Call Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford because Pens prospect Daniel Sprong is available for teh right price.
Join the Discussion:
»