The Vancouver Canucks announced that forward Elias Pettersson is sidelined for one to two weeks with an MCL sprain.
Canucks announce Pettersson has a slight sprain of his right MCL.
— John Shannon (@JShannonhl) January 6, 2019
Elias Pettersson Injured
While playing against the Montreal Canadiens, Pettersson had a mid-ice collision with Jesperi Kotkaniemi that resulted in Pettersson landing on his leg and leaving the game.
Canucks Elias Pettersson leaves game with injury.
This is nottt the kind of way you want to see the leg bend of your leading point scorer 😳 pic.twitter.com/aODPdqxRVu
— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) January 4, 2019
So far this season, Pettersson has scored 22 goals and 20 assists for 42 points to go along with 6 minutes in penalties. His possession numbers were 50.9 percent Corsi and a relative Corsi of 4.7%.
This is Pettersson’s rookie season and was the frontrunner to win the Calder Memorial Trophy. Only having played 38 games so far in his career, he is over a point per game this season. He was taken in the first round, 5th overall in the 2017 NHL draft.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi weighed in after the game talking about the play, saying there was no intent to injure and that it was an unfortunate play, and stated that he apologized after the game.
Here are Jesperi Kotkaniemi's answers to the questions about the Elias Pettersson injury: pic.twitter.com/rMJE9SVTmI
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) January 4, 2019
What This Means for the Future
With Pettersson out, this will be a huge blow to the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks roster has heavily relied upon Pettersson and their other young stars such as Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat. He is the teams leading scorer and the team will feel the loss, even if it is only for a couple of weeks. The Canucks roster does not have a lot of secondary scoring and will struggle to keep pace, as seen in the 5-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night in their first full game without Pettersson.
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