Another wrinkle of Vancouver Canucks drama has been revealed in the aftermath of the Quinn Hughes trade.
It’s been over a week since the Canucks faithful said goodbye to their former captain. After the deal, it was revealed by The Athletic’s Mike Russo and Joe Smith that Hughes held a send-off dinner with select Canucks teammates while in New York.
Brock Boeser, Tyler Myers, Conor Garland, and Filip Hronek were all reported to attend the send-off, but there was nothing about Elias Pettersson being there. It seems strange that a fellow Canucks star, and a big part of the leadership group, would be left out of such a thing.
The two players grew up in the organization together and went through the same ups and downs throughout eachother’s careers. Yet, according to The Province’s Patrick Johnston, there had been some friction between the two players over the past year or so.
“Certainly for a long time the two were close,” Johnston wrote. “Sources who know them say Hughes played a big role in supporting Pettersson last season when things were well and truly falling apart between the centre and J.T. Miller.”
Things, however, seemed to have deteriorated over the past year. The Canucks’ prolonged struggles didn’t help, but Johnston says that Hughes was starting to take issue with Pettersson’s work ethic.
The Swede has been plagued with questions around his conditioning in recent years, and that seems to have rubbed some of his teammates the wrong way. That is despite reports that Pettersson ramped things up over the last summer.
“As happens, the two have drifted apart,” Johnston wrote. “Sources have said Hughes and Pettersson have generally just drifted apart. As important Hughes was in supporting his teammate last season, he still had grown frustrated with Pettersson’s work ethic.
“Pettersson being poor in his off-season preparation has been a frustration for teammates of his before… Hughes, it would seem, was struggling to see a way forward here. Even after Pettersson did dial it up. Too little, too late it would seem.”
The future of the franchise is in a state of uncertainty as it stands. With Hughes gone and the team now committed to entering some sort of rebuild, a decision will have to be made on whether Pettersson fits into the organization’s long-term plans.
This is now two prominent teammates that Pettersson seemingly didn’t have great relationships with. If he were playing at his best, a team may overlook that, but it gets harder to do so if his struggles continue.
Interesting times are ahead in the Pacific Northwest, and many more important decisions will need to be made in the next little while.