Is Elias Pettersson's Performance Really That Bad?

May 9, 2024

The Canucks are on a roll right now, coming off a 4-goal comeback to take down the Oilers 5-4 in game 1. Elias Pettersson's recent performance has been labelled as a disappointment (https://thehockeywriters.com/canucks-key-players-oilers-2024-playoffs/) by many, with some speculating he's playing through injury.

I want to see what the data says.

Everything definitely trends down throughout the season, especially assists, but it's hard to make much out of these graphs. What about using stats before and after a certain date? Commentators often compare player performance before and after the All Star break.

The light blue (post-All Star) stats are definitely way lower than pre-All Star (green), so that lines up with the narrative. Why use the All Star break has a differentiator? It feels kind of arbitrary. Surely we can work out exactly when the biggest dropoff is.

The biggest dropoff was before and after Feb 11th, actually pretty close to the All Star break, and still a few weeks before signing his new contract.

What about the media frenzy before the contract? It's no secret the Canadian teams get a lot of attention, and by mid-Feb the news cycles were really going crazy, including fairly serious trade talks. Could the attention have had an impact on his play? We can use Google News to get an idea of media coverage through the season.

The graph shows media coverage of Elias throughout the season increases which a lot. Rick Tocchet's callout of Elias in late January generated a huge spike in articles.

Even after that, there's way more coverage through February than there had been previously, right up until the contract signing in March.

Maybe the media has got to him. I prescribe to Elias a summer of Fika and Kanelbullar to recharge his batteries, no boat interviews. Let's close the playoffs strong and come back without the drama next season.

Edit: well, it's official, he was injured since January. Let's go for next season Petey!