What is Elias Pettersson’s trade value?

After two down seasons, has Elias Pettersson’s bounced back and what is his trade value?

Halford and Brough: Harman Dayal on the trade value of Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson.

Jason Brough: “But what we’re seeing right now, Harm, this is the question for you is: let’s say this is the player, right? Like this, let’s say this is the player that we’re talking about. What is he worth on the trade market? Without getting into the no-move clause and everything too.

Dayal: “Yeah, it’s a, it’s a tough question. I think certainly if he keeps playing at this level, positive value in a way that, like, when I when I spoke to people around the league this past summer, the feedback that, feedback that I kind of got was, sure the Canucks could trade him. And sure, if they really wanted to dump the whole contract, they probably could. But what are you actually going to get back?

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And I think the feedback was just teams aren’t going to give you premium assets for him. And in fact, they, if you’re asking to dump the whole contract, they might ask you, like a team like LA might be like, ‘All right, we’ll take the full freight, but we also want you to take Cody Ceci or Brian Dumoulin back. And just looking at it from that standpoint, this past offseason, it didn’t really make much sense for the Canucks to explore Pettersson trade, just because I don’t think his market value was there.

Now, does this bounce back change things? I think it would help. I think overall, though, it’s also worth noting that even with the bounce back, I think Pettersson’s reputation around the league is polarizing. There are some people that are going to believe in the skill set and believe in the player. I think there are other people who are just going to look at the fact that he had the fall off in the first place. Or wonder if he’s somebody that would handle the, the pressure of you know playing on a contending team.

Like I wonder, a team like Montreal, for example, they could so desperately use a second-line center. And I’m looking at it though, and going, would they have confidence that the market fit and it being such, such a loud pressure cooker market would be the best environment to get the most out of Pettersson.

Overall, if he keeps this up, I do think, especially the way the cap is going, like I saw some people in the comment section of my article, and these were presumably non-Canucks fans saying that, ‘Oh no no team’s going to want him at 11.6.’ I’m looking at some of these contracts for centermen, and I’m going if, if Pettersson is even like, forget him even getting back to a point-per-game level, if he’s 70 points with high-level defensive play, 11.6 isn’t that bad at all. Especially in a world where teams have cap space, but where talent is a scarcity.

So I don’t know, like I can’t sit here and say his value is a first-round pick and this and that. Like I can’t peg the exact. Like I can’t quantify it. But the direction his play is moving right now, I certainly think his value is increasing, and we could be having a much different conversation about what he’s worth next summer than we did this past one.”