Four potential landing spots for Canucks star Elias Pettersson

With the recent arrival of 2025, we put together a piece outlining the top 25 players of the 2000s. It was equally fun and maddening whittling the list down to 25 ... OK, it was at least 51 per cent fun, but you get the point.

Not a single Vancouver Canuck appeared on the list, though obviously the likes of Roberto Luongo and the Sedin twins — Daniel and Henrik — got strong consideration. Still, this ranking may be relevant to the current Canucks when you consider the trade speculation swirling around Elias Pettersson, and that’s because of two players who appear in succession on our list: No. 22, Joe Thornton, and No. 23, Zdeno Chara.

It was nearly 20 years ago, in November 2005, that the Boston Bruins dealt Thornton to the San Jose Sharks in the middle of what turned out to be a Hart Trophy-winning season. Pettersson isn’t going to be the league MVP this year, but the Thornton comparison gets to the heart of why the idea of trading the talented Swede makes many Canucks fans queasy.

Thornton was 26 when he was dealt from Boston to Northern California. Though, as the first-overall pick in 1997, he’d established himself as an elite offensive player with the B’s, the team’s shortcomings in the playoffs and his perceived failings when the games mattered most led to Boston cutting bait. Thornton went on to register 92 points in just 58 games with San Jose that 2005-06 season and win the scoring title, along with being named MVP. He remained a stud No. 1 centre and point-producing machine for 10 more years with the Sharks, though it must be noted a fantastic teal team never got over the top.

Any of that Boston bit sound familiar?

Petterson — currently sidelined by injury — is 26 and had a 102-point season during a 2022-23 campaign in which he also received Selke Trophy votes. But, for some, there’s a leave-you-wanting element to his story that the numbers — at least production-wise — back up. Last winter, after inking an enormous $92.8-million extension that sees a no-move clause kick in on July 1, Pettersson seemed to struggle under the weight of heightened expectations. He scored just five goals and 14 points in 20 games after the March 2 agreement, then bottomed out in the playoffs with one goal in 13 games.

He's produced at a 68-point pace this season and is a central figure on a team engulfed in drama. Seriously, can the Canucks not go more than 12 months without morphing from a hockey team into an opera?

If Thornton seems to be the cautionary tale aspect to this equation, let’s consider the Chara element to complete the picture. While it’s not a total one-in, one-out scenario, by trading Thornton the Bruins essentially made it far easier to sign Chara to a big free agent contract about eight months later in the summer of 2006. Chara went on to play for Boston essentially as long as Thornton skated for San Jose and, along with Patrice Bergeron, was the co-standard bearer for what it meant to be a Bruin and beat — checks notes — ah, the Canucks in the 2011 Stanley Cup final.

Trading a super-skilled, in-his-prime centre never seems like a good idea in the moment, but you could argue it actually worked out for Boston in the long term. Maybe a combination of additional cap space and a grand return of players for trading Pettersson could make moving No. 40 a win for Vancouver.

Still, it’s one scary proposition.

Where the Thornton story deviates from Pettersson’s is the fact that the move caught a lot of people off-guard and left a lot of general managers miffed they didn’t get a chance to make an offer. Today, every GM in the NHL has likely done at least one back-of-the-napkin outline for what it might take to get Pettersson.

Our goal today is to identify a few clubs who might be motivated and best positioned to turn themselves into a Pettersson landing spot should Canucks brass decide to take the plunge.

Carolina Hurricanes

This is an easy one because there was smoke here last winter before Pettersson inked his extension. The Athletic has reported the Canucks want an “apples-for-apples” trade, whether we’re talking about Pettersson or the teammate he reportedly isn’t vibing with, J.T. Miller. Unfortunately for Vancouver, the only high-end, under-contract centres known to be on the market both play in Vancouver and can’t be traded for each other.

Chances are any return isn’t going to be a completely clean fit for Vancouver in terms of getting a player of comparable ability to Pettersson who’s around the same age and plays the same premier position. Carolina, for instance, obviously isn’t swapping Sebastian Aho for Pettersson because, among other reasons, that defeats the purpose of adding Pettersson to a group you want to strengthen.

Maybe the conversation focuses on a centre piece such as 22-year-old winger Seth Jarvis or KHL defenceman Alexander Nikishin, who is expected in North America as soon as the end of this season and might be a top-four stud immediately.

Buffalo Sabres

This is another no-brainer, in part because Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman already melted minds earlier this season when he spitballed about the Sabres sending centre Dylan Cozens and defenceman Bowen Byram to Vancouver for Pettersson.

Quite frankly, Elliotte’s had crazier ideas.

Buffalo definitely ticks a lot of boxes in that it’s an Eastern Conference club — and you have to think, given its druthers, Vancouver would prefer to send Pettersson a few time zones away — with some intriguing young pieces at both forward and defence. Buffalo is also sufficiently motivated to do something major as it scuffles through another frustrating season in Western New York.

Anaheim Ducks

On one hand, if the Canucks would prefer to move Pettersson east, they surely don’t love the idea of him playing for a division rival that is, technically, kind of fighting for one of the same wild-card spots Vancouver is seeking.

That said, you ultimately have to take the best deal, and the Ducks might be able to offer that. Mason McTavish has not popped offensively the way Anaheim likely hoped by Year 3 and, with Leo Carlsson already in the NHL and 2024 third-overall pick Beckett Sennecke in the pipeline, maybe the Ducks would consider moving McTavish for a proven entity with more pure, offensive ability who is still young. A Swedish 1-2 of Pettersson and Carlsson down the middle for the next seven or eight years sounds pretty great.

Who knows, maybe the teams could get on a roll and put together a blockbuster that also involves Trevor Zegras, who has seemed destined to play somewhere other than Anaheim for going on two years.

Minnesota Wild

The Wild have long needed a No. 1 centre to help drive their offence. And, just when it seems like they may have one developing in-house, Marco Rossi’s name has been in trade rumours this season, just like Pettersson’s. Rossi’s play in the past month or so — 13 points in 12 games, though eight came during a three-game heater — will likely quiet chatter about the 23-year-old playing anywhere other than the "State of Hockey." But if GM Bill Guerin doesn’t think he and the pending RFA are in the same universe when it comes to a second contract and there’s a player of Pettersson’s ilk and age out there, that could make moving a great young piece like Rossi palatable.