Sekeres and Price: Rick Dhaliwal on where things are with Vancouver Canucks and an Elias Pettersson contract extension.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jeff Patterson: “So if they’re going to get this thing headed in the right direction, Elias Pettersson’s going to be a huge part of it Ricky. What’s going on? It seems awfully quiet out there. Saw Sebastian Aho get his deal done.
It’s only the first week of August, I get that but are the two sides, is there any chatter going on behind the scenes?”
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Dhaliwal: “Well, I checked in on Pettersson yesterday cause I knew I was going on with you guys and I was told it’s very quiet.
The only guy on this planet who thought something was going to happen quickly was Matt Sekeres.
And I don’t see any urgency as of right now from either side and I’ll tell you why. And it’s not surprising. I didn’t think they were going to get a deal done in June or July, sorry, in July or August.
The Canucks might be saying, ‘hey, put up another 100 points and we’ll gladly pay you.’ And also, keep this in mind, you want Pettersson’s new contract to kick in when the salary cap is increased significantly. You need it to go up a ton and then he fits in nicely.
His agents Pat Brisson and JP Barry, they’re going to bet on their player. That he’s going to get another 100 points. And then they will have a lot of time to evaluate Pettersson as an RFA next summer as well under different circumstances. In 12 months Pettersson’s stock could be sky high if he has another 100 points, right?
And so, but, in the end I don’t see any issues with either side getting the deal done.
My biggest fear with Pettersson is that he pulls the (Matthew) Tkachuk or (Alex) DeBrincat or (Pierre-Luc) Dubois. Lot of good players that left Canada recently guys. And no elite player is going to sick around and lose year after year after year.
One of the reasons they’re elite players is one of the great traits of elite players is they hate to lose. And in your prime years, you don’t want to spend your prime years out of the playoffs every year. You want to be going deep into the playoffs.
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So, you know, let’s, maybe there’s a wait and see approach for both sides. Right now I can report to you guys it’s quiet and I’m not surprised at all, at all.
.@DhaliwalSports on Elias Pettersson’s contract extension:
“I was told it’s very quiet…I don’t see any urgency as of right now from either side…maybe there’s a ‘wait and see’ approach from both sides.” #Canucks@GreatClips | https://t.co/cJDRTvYYmt
— Sekeres and Price (@sekeresandprice) August 9, 2023