The Vancouver Canucks signed Elias Pettersson to an eight-year, $92.8 million contract extension in March, ensuring he wouldn’t hit restricted free agency and committing to the 26-year-old as a core piece for the future. Less than a year later, Petterson is at the center of NHL rumors ahead of the March 7 trade deadline.

Just a handful of days after Flyers’ general manager Daniel Briere said, “The reality is, there’s not a lot of high-end centermen in this league. And teams have them, they want to keep them, or the price is crazy,

The Vancouver Canucks have been working the phones and it appears a new favourite has emerged in a potential Elias Pettersson trade.

After Friday’s blockbuster trade between the Colorado Avalanche and the Carolina Hurricanes, which sent pending unrestricted free agent Mikko Rantanen, one of the NHL’s premier forwards, from the Avs to the Canes in exchange for sniper Martin Necas,

The Blackhawks signed Brian Campbell a year later, and Marián Hossa a year after that. There was no distant future. There was just now. And within three years, they were Stanley Cup champions. “We just expected to win,

Typically, when an NHL team has the luxury of counting on two 100-point players in its lineup, things go the right way. In Vancouver, the opposite is happening right now. The situation surrounding Elias Pettersson and J.

WIth drama continuing to build, the Vancouver Canucks may pivot back to Elias Pettersson as the key trade piece.