Irf Gaffar of The Daily Faceoff joined TFP Hotstove on Saturday on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Dave Pagnotta, Dennis Bernstein, and Ryan Paton. There, he was asked about Elias Pettersson‘s future with the Vancouver Canucks.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
The Vancouver Canucks and Elias Pettersson Need to Have a Real Conversation
Ryan Paton: “Henrik and Daniel Sedin had some comments on Elias Pettersson. They were asked about him in the off-season and preparation, and whether they were directly or indirectly to him, saying, “You know what, everyone has to be prepped and ready to go by the time training camp comes. He’s going to be under the gun again, as he has been for a little while here. Where do you think this new position with Daniel and Henrik, and even Ryan Johnson coming in, do you think that’s going to be a good thing, hopefully for Pettersson, whatever he’s going through?”
Irf Gaffar: “J.T. Miller told the latest Pettersson he needed to be in better shape, and look what happened to J.T. Miller. So there’s the answer, right? It’s a thing that’s known, right? Look, I’ll give him the knee tendinitis, the one year he had the injuries, and then obviously everything that’s happened in his personal life. There, there is a bit of stuff, but at the end of the day, you’re getting paid $11.6 million. The time for excuses is now, very basically over.
Like, you’re a guy who needs to be a franchise player; you’d be the top, the highest-paid player on 25 other teams in the National Hockey League. Like, that is a big responsibility that Elias Pettersson has to bear. And I think that if Daniel and Henrik Sedin can’t get through to Elias Pettersson, who’s going to at this point, right? Right.
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And I’m not talking about Elias Pettersson as a 20-21-year-old player, 22-year-old player, trying to find his way in the National Hockey League. Like this guy’s a man, like he is in the National Hockey League. He got his big contract, like you are now to be depended on night in and night out, so we’ll see.
I mean, talks around the National Hockey League, or people are out on him. They don’t know if he can ever regain that 102-point form. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. But yeah, Pates, I mean, like preparation is key. You’ve got to come to camp in shape, and for me, it’s leading by example.
You don’t, if I’m Elias Pettersson, I don’t want to come into camp in shape, I want to come into camp and be the guy and be like I’m him, I’m the one in the most shape. You all have to come and catch up to me, like that’s the example that I think that fans want to see from him.
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That’s the example that I think the front office and ownership want to see from him, and hopefully at some point it’ll be for him to realize that this summer, that like, okay, because the alternative is, well, we were probably gonna have to look and trade you.
But you know what’s even more upsetting, and maybe embarrassing, is when you hear reports come out and say that there’s, there isn’t a market for Elias Pettersson right now. Like the guy, you know what I mean, like he’s a top-tier, should be a top-tier player in the National Hockey League, and teams should be lining up for him. But because of what we heard, and because of what we know, it just ain’t there.”
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