He was seven years old, at his grandfather’s house in a tiny town near where Elias grew up in central Sweden, watching his hockey heroes play arch-rivals Team Finland in the 2006 final from Turin.
“I still remember watching it at my grandpa’s house,” Pettersson told Sportsnet before travelling last week to Italy for the Winter Olympics. “It was a village where probably 500 people lived, close to where I grew up in Ånge. I remember the double drop pass and the (Nicklas) Lidstrom slapshot to take the lead, and then all the chaos in the last minute.”
Sweden won the gold-medal game 3-2, the winning goal conjured by arguably the three greatest players in Swedish hockey history — Peter Forsberg to Mats Sundin to Lidstrom — and the lead preserved by Henrik Lundqvist with a circus save against Olli Jokinen with about 25 seconds remaining.
Back then, it was Lundqvist, not Forsberg or Sundin, whom Pettersson wanted to be like.
“Yeah, I was screaming,” he recalled. “At practice later that night, I was the goalie. I wanted to become a goalie.”
Pettersson said his grandfather, Toivo, escaped to Sweden from Finland with his family during World War II when he was four years old.
“So, I’m one-quarter Finnish,” he said.
Toivo died when Pettersson was a teenager, so the memory of that 2006 Olympic final has become even more precious with age.
“Time flies,” he said. “I’m always going to remember the final in Turin in ’06. That was 20 years ago, so it would be cool to repeat.”
Pettersson eventually became a centre, not a goalie, and one of the highest-paid players in the National Hockey League.
The 27-year-old Vancouver Canuck will face pressure and scrutiny with Team Sweden, which will be without emerging star Leo Carlsson and could also be missing another key centre, Elias Lindholm, due to injury.
Sweden opens the Olympic tournament against the host Italians on Wednesday.
“I want to have the pressure and want to have that responsibility and play big minutes,” Pettersson said. “But I’ve got to earn it, not take it for granted. Whatever they ask me, I’m going to do my best.”
Through injuries and organizational upheaval, Pettersson has struggled to play his best for the Canucks over the last two years.
His 15-goal season last year, in which Pettersson’s strained relationship with teammate J.T. Miller became a focal point for all that was wrong with the Canucks, was pretty much a disaster.
Healthier and stronger this season, Pettersson has been a little better but is still generating offence (13 goals and 34 points in 49 games) like a second-line NHL centre and certainly not the first-line superstar the Canucks want him to be.
“The Olympics, it’s a great opportunity to play for your country,” Canucks coach Adam Foote said before the team scattered last week. “I know he’s played for his country before … but when you’re playing for an Olympic medal, it seems different than, say, a world championship. Like, it’s just different. It’s amazing.
“It’ll be a good marker for Petey and good experience to get to play at that pace. I think there’s another pace he can play at and, you know, he’s aware of it. We’ve been having deep discussions with our coaches and him, and he’s owned it. He’s been way more open to discussion about it this year. I think he knows he’s got something more to offer, I really do. And I think it’s just, you know, it’s just the work. Maybe playing at the pace of the Olympics will give him that jumpstart.”
Pettersson’s first best-on-best hockey came during the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago, but he did not register a point in three games, and Sweden failed to advance to the final.
“Just the experience,” Pettersson said of his main takeaway from that tournament. “I mean, you always play against good players in the NHL, but now all those good players were on one team. Just the level of hockey, level of detail, everything, races (for the puck), definitely the speed. Just everything.”
“It’s the Olympics, so I think he’s going to be incredibly driven,” long-serving Canucks teammate Tyler Myers said. “It’s a chance to win a gold medal, not too far away from home, really. So I fully expect Petey is going to go over there and will be extremely motivated to do well. I’m excited for all those guys to get over there and … bring that experience back here to this room.”
The Canucks’ dressing room has not been a happy place this season.
Expecting to bounce back from last year’s 90-point season, the 18-33-6 Canucks instead are last in the NHL and on pace to finish with 59 points, which would be the franchise’s worst campaign this century. The trade of captain Quinn Hughes in December accelerated the organization’s dramatic pivot towards a rebuild.
Interestingly, Pettersson isn’t viewing the Olympics as an escape from all the troubles.
“It’s easy to say that it’s nice to go to the Olympics,” he said. “Obviously, Olympics are a dream come true to play in. But these are my guys here (in Vancouver) that I play with and battle with. I don’t want to get out of that. I’m not looking for any outs to get away from this. Like, we’re going to try to turn this around, and I want to be part of that. I am very excited for Olympics, but it’s not an out.”
“He’s a leader,” Canucks teammate and friend Linus Karlsson said. “I mean, you can see how he blocks shots, how he works so hard at both ends. He’s maybe not the most vocal guy, but he works hard for the team. He’s going to be a big part of Team Sweden, and they’re going to need him to play really good to have a chance to win. And I think he’s going to do that. He wants everything for the team. That’s just how it is.”
Karlsson said there is a lot of “fight” inside Pettersson that people don’t see.
“Some people show (emotion), and some people don’t show it,” teammate Nils Hoglander said, “but he cares a lot about the game. And especially now, you’re fighting for your country. It’s not that often you get to play at the Olympics, so he cares a lot, and I know he’s super excited to go there.”
Twenty years later, back in Northern Italy, Pettersson is empowered to make new memories.