Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote Drawing Major Criticism For His Usage of Forward Elias Pette

Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote Drawing Major Criticism For His Usage of Forward Elias Pette

Photo credit: Matt Marton – Imagn Images.

Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote is drawing criticism for his usage of forward Elias Pettersson early in the season, especially during Tuesday’s loss.

The Vancouver Canucks are coming off their third loss of the 2025-26 season and it was a tough one, falling 5-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins, but the biggest storyline after the game was Elias Pettersson’s ice time.

Pettersson hasn’t had the best start to the new season, but has looked better recently, registering seven points in four games and following their loss to St. Louis on Thanksgiving, Adam Foote was criticized for how he was using the team’s number one centerman and is once again being questioned for his decisions.”The President of the organization was on the Amazon Prime broadcast last night and said specifically ‘he’s our number one center.’ Why isn’t he being deployed like it? Filip Chytil‘s playing more minutes, especially at five-on-five and Elias Pettersson is getting under 16 minutes a night? You go back to Saturday, he was at like 13 minutes and then played the final three minutes of the game when they were trying to get the tying goal against the Edmonton Oilers. I don’t understand this deployment. I don’t think Pettersson’s been good, but I don’t think he’s deserved to not be at his normal 18, 19, 20 minutes a night.” Dan Riccio of Sportsnet said last week.

Adam Foote drawing criticism for how he’s using forward Elias Pettersson

During a recent edition of Donnie & Dhali, Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal examined the team’s ice time during their 5-1 loss to the Penguins on Tuesday and at five-on-five, it’s pretty interesting who was on the ice ahead of Elias Pettersson.

Aatu Raty led the way for centermen at five-on-five, skating in 15:06, followed by Nils Aman at 10:31, Max Sasson at 10:22 and Elias Pettersson, who played under ten minutes at five-on-five, with his ice time coming in at 9:28.”You’re paying this guy $11.6 million, Don. You pay him to him to produce. On a night where there’s three Abbotsford centers, there’s no Blueger, there’s no Chytil. This is the night when Pettersson should be at 15:05, not Raty.” Dhaliwal said.

He later when on to add, “What are you doing? Like why is Pettersson making $11.6 million, the other guys’ salaries, I think all three of those guys are making under a million dollars.”

Going back to Sunday’s win in Washington, when Elias Pettersson picked up his first goal of the season, he was up at 18:37, so it’s easy to see that if you give him that ice time, he’s going to have more opportunities to produce and with him making $11.6 million, he should be getting anywhere from 19-22 minutes a night.

Hopefully things will change for tonight’s game in Nashville and Pettersson will be given the minutes that he should be getting, both at five-on-five and on the power play.

Previously on Canucks Daily

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Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote Drawing Major Criticism For His Usage of Forward Elias Pettersson

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