What is the obsession with "re-progamming" players? Canucks are always trying to turn every player into a 200ft grinder or something. Some players are just meant to be purely offensive and just moderate to adequate defensively.
The good teams just play a couple of defensively good forwards with the high price offense and it works out.
Look at Clayton Keller's blossoming since Tocchet left.
Keller even asked for a trade. Yes the line idea, put strengths with weaknesses, that's called coaching.
If you are suggesting Keller getting away from Tocchet is the reason for his emergence, are you also suggesting Tocchet is the reason for the rise to super stardom for guys like Hughes, Miller and Stamkos?
And what they are looking for from Pettersson is what guys like Datsyuk, Crosby, Kopitar, Bergeron, Toews, Barkov, etc. gave the teams they led. It doesn't necessarily mean Selke level two-way game, it means championship level commitment on and off the ice that is expected based on his salary and role.
What ever makes you believe that Pettersson was ever like those guys? It is a team, that means lots of players not just one. That he gets paid this much is not his fault, he didn't hold out for that, he didn't even want to sign that early.
At any rate they made it very obvious that Pettersson was not their choice to keep, made that obvious to Pettersson and no doubt soured the market on him. This make losing a trade for him much more acceptable to the fans.
Trading Pettersson will not be a win for the Canucks.
He has a 10 million dollar signing bonus July 1 so a trade before he get his NMC is very doubtful BUT with this declaration that he was their second choice, Miller being their first, might make Pettersson willing to waive that clause AFTER he gets his 10 million.
A lot of fans called him 11.6 this year, that is totally false, he made 14.6 million this year and next year so that 10 mil bonus leaves 4.5 mil for the rest of next year, that might make him more valuable.
With the lack of quality FAs out there and most of the team's high value assets being Hughes, Garland, Pettersson and Demko with Lekkerimaki on the borderline that leaves mostly only the very high valued 1rst round picks in 2026 and 2027