Is it time to sell-high on Canucks’ Elias Pettersson?
Vancouver Canucks center Elias Pettersson has managed to overcome the difficult surroundings on his team to stand out as one of the biggest pleasant surprises in all of fantasy hockey through the first month-and-change.
After a couple years of struggling to find his game at all, Pettersson is starting to produce offense at a rate closer to what fans became accustomed too in the earlier portion of his career.
After 102 points in 2022-23 and 89 in 2023-24, Pettersson dipped down to outputs of 45 and 51 points in the previous two seasons. But now, even as the Canucks have struggled mightily as a team this season, Pettersson is producing. His 18 points in 18 games have him on track for his best season in years, and they lead the team by a margin of three.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk was joined by Daily Faceoff Managing fantasy Editor Brock Seguin to discuss whether now is the right time for fantasy managers to sell high on Pettersson before any possible regression hits.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Anyone who you’re looking at through this first month, and going like alright, that’s a fun first 15-20 games, but maybe if you had him on your team, you’d try to do a little sell high?
Brock Seguin: Yeah, Elias Pettersson from the Vancouver Canucks, and we’re talking about the center, not the defenseman. I think it’s interesting and I guess nice to see him back at a point per game thus far. It’s a good story. The Canucks are at least fun, scoring some goals, but I just don’t think this is going to last. Pettersson, the Canucks at least have scored 10.4 goals above expected with Pettersson on the ice this year. It’s the sixth-highest mark among forwards, so that’s going to come down. It’s going to drop his assist rate, and there’s probably not a lot of goal production to come anyway. He’s averaging just 3.3 shot attempts per game, 1.3 shots on goal per game is super, super brutal, and the quality’s not there either, so even when he’s getting shots on net, they’re not of the high-danger variety.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…
