The great football coach Vince Lombardi famously said, “There’s a thousand reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.” We’ve heard a lot of interesting reasons over the years (nothing tops when a New York Jets quarterback blamed ghosts on the field, but back to hockey). While he may not have blamed ghosts on the ice, Elias Pettersson brought up two interesting reasons for his slow start last season. Call us crazy, but in today’s NHL, he might be onto something.
Pettersson recently spoke about how he overcame his slow start to last season. Okay, “slow” was an understatement, because he only had 17 points before the Vancouver Canucks‘ final 43 games.
Pettersson finished the year with a career-best 32 goals and 36 assists for 68 points. Pettersson had a new career-high in games played with 80, but that stat is skewed due to the 2019-2020 season being cut short and an injury ending another abbreviated 2020-2021 season early.
Elias Pettersson started slow and finished strong in the 2021-2022 season.
The first reason Pettersson brings up is his trouble in picking out a new stick for the start of the season. It’s almost funny hearing a player blame his stick. Silly Elias, sticks don’t score goals, players do!
Put the jokes aside and Pettersson just might have a point. Gone are the days when any old piece of wood would do. The options for players to choose their equipment are bigger than before and near limitless.
Open any issue of the Hockey News and you’ll find articles on the latest, greatest, and most expensive hockey technology.
The equipment, especially sticks, players use today make the sticks of Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Orr almost look like the tools of a caveman.
Tell the young kids starting out today that back in your day you didn’t have foam composite sticks with carbon fiber blades and you might get the reaction of, “Sure grandpa, I bet you couldn’t watch hockey highlights on your phone either.”
Whether you believe Pettersson’s “reason” or not, it speaks to the familiarity hockey players like to have with their equipment. We wouldn’t be surprised if more players use the “reason” for bad performance in the future.
The lovely folks at Bauer and CCM sure wouldn’t like to hear the game’s best blame their equipment, however.
Pettersson’s second reason was how he missed training camp while negotiating a new contract. Player holdouts are becoming semi-common in the NHL.
While Pettersson’s standoff with Vancouver management didn’t go as far as William Nylander with the Toronto Maple Leafs, it might be something to look at in the future.
How does not having that contract locked and loaded on the first day of training camp, the preseason, or the regular season affect player performance?
For what it’s worth in the extreme example of William Nylander, he finished with a career-worst points per game in his holdout during the 2018-2019 season with only 27 points in 54 games.
Pettersson is entering this Canucks camp with confidence. Interestingly, he didn’t mention the coaching change of Bruce Boudreau as a factor leading to his second-half surge. Will a full season under Boudreau help him find consistency?
He’s already got a contract, so if he struggles, maybe he should blame his stick once again.