Elias Pettersson levels Shane Wright, then wins a fight and sparks Canucks victory

If you follow the Canucks and saw the name Elias Pettersson trending Saturday night, take a second look before assuming it was the $11.6 million forward. This was the other one, the 22 year old defenseman fans call D Petey, and he made sure nobody at Rogers Arena forgot his name.

Vancouver came into its preseason finale against Seattle sitting at 0-3, outscored 9-4 through the first three games, and hunting for anything to build on before Tuesday's opener in Edmonton. With under four minutes left in the third period, Pettersson threw a clean, heavy open ice hit that put Shane Wright down. Ryan Winterton did not care for it and squared up with Pettersson on the spot.

Pettersson won the scrap, and Winterton picked up an extra minor on top of the fighting major, putting Vancouver right back on the power play. The Canucks made it count. Jake DeBrusk tipped home a Brock Boeser shot just as Winterton's penalty expired, and that goal stood up as the winner in a 4-3 Vancouver victory.

Grady Sas caught the whole sequence on X, and it is worth the watch.

Sas floated an idea that is already catching on with Canucks fans, pairing Pettersson with Luke Schenn on a physical third pairing. Manny Malhotra still has real decisions ahead before the roster is set, and after a winless preseason, Vancouver could use exactly the kind of edge Pettersson just showed. Leaving him out of the lineup now would send a strange message to a room that just watched him drag his team to its first win of the fall.

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