The Vancouver Canucks are enjoying a year that nobody, perhaps outside the players’ locker room, saw coming. They have been atop the standings for much of the season, their stars are performing and their coach is in serious consideration for the Jack Adams Award.
The only thing that may sour this otherwise fantastic moment is the reminder that franchise centre, and pending restricted free agent, Elias Pettersson has yet to sign a contract extension.
While the thought of this may have the eyes of Canucks fans twitching, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford, who signed his own three-year extension Friday, isn’t sweating it just yet.
“We can wait. I’ll say the obvious, we keep saying it over and over — we really want him to stay. He’s a very special player. He’s very important to the Canucks, he’s very important to the city,” Rutherford told reporters. “He can’t walk at the end of the season, and that the position we’ve taken. We’ve taken that position very comfortably, so there’s not anybody getting anxious here.”
Pettersson, 25, is under team control following this season after he signed a three-year, $22.025-million bridge deal ahead of the 2021 season. Per CapFriendly, Pettersson is owed a qualifying offer of $8.820-million in order for the Canucks to retain negotiation rights, if an extension is not agreed to prior to the qualifying offer deadline.
The Swede has reiterated that he is not interested in engaging in serious negotiations with the team until after the season is done, but with the level at which he’s been playing, it’s clear he’s due a raise from his $7.35-million salary.
Toronto Maple Leafs winger William Nylander, widely considered to be comparable salary-wise to Pettersson, recently signed an eight-year, $92-million contract to stay with his club.
The cap implications of that sort of raise could be tricky, but Rutherford has not been shy in shedding less-than-desirable contracts from the Canucks roster since becoming president, including the blockbuster buy-out of defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson during the off-season.
Though Rutherford clearly doesn’t share the same anxiety that some fans have at the prospect of a superstar walking away, he’s made it clear that he’s in tune with the rhetoric — sometimes, he joked, a little too in tune.
“My son asked me at 7 o’clock this morning, just for the record,” Rutherford said with a smile when asked about the Pettersson negotiations. “It’s because he asks me almost every morning, just like everybody else wants to know.”