When Elias Pettersson arrived on the scene, nobody in and around the Vancouver Canucks knew what he would go on to do in his rookie year. Pettersson accelerated the rebuild in what was supposed to be another disappointing season where the Canucks finished near the bottom of the standings.
He, along with players such as Jacob Markstrom, Bo Horvat, and Brock Boeser, gave the Canucks a fighting chance to make the playoffs, and they were in the hunt right up until March last season, as a result. The Canucks saw this progress and decided that they had their core pieces in place to turn the ship around.