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Canucks 4, Kraken 3: A standout night for D-Petey and power plays

The Canucks closed out the pre-season with a fun comeback game, serving up the right mix of heart and gameplay to send fans home happy.

Published Sep 26, 2026  •  Last updated 5 hours ago  •  4 minute read

Elias Pettersson in action during the 2025-26 Vancouver Canucks season. He plans to take a steady approach the 2026-27 season. Photo by Derek Cain /Getty Images

From the looks of Saturday’s final pre-season tune-up for the Vancouver Canucks, they’re going to be an energetic but far from perfect team this season.

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Just as expected.

It was a fun comeback for the Canucks, with the right mix of heart and gameplay to send fans home happy with a 4-3 win over Seattle.

Here’s a hat trick of takeaways to mull over as we wait to see how the Canucks’ final roster shakes out.

As training camp got underway last week in Penticton, I thought defenceman Elias Pettersson seemed somehow bigger, so I asked him about it.

He smiled and answered in the affirmative.

“I feel like a couple kilos doesn’t kill me,” he said.

After last season, he needed a full re-set. For Pettersson and the Canucks’ other young defencemen, 2025-26 was a rough year. The team’s lack of defensive stability dragged down his play as well as that of Tom Willander and Zeev Buium.

They’ve now had the summer off to recharge and rebuild their mentality, all while working with a coach who did wonders for the Canucks’ youngsters in Abbotsford.

You could see the difference in the edge Pettersson brought on Saturday: he’s found himself again. He was physical, on top of the opposition and smart with the puck.

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And, heck, he got in a fight.

He was the most impactful defenceman on the ice and the second-most impactful overall Canuck of the game behind Linus Karlsson.

Post-game, he was grinning about his night. This was exactly how he wants things to be, he said.

“I’ve been feeling good since first week of camp, and yeah, tonight felt good. Felt good to play with Schenner,” he said. He and Schenn have very similar styles: physical and dependable in the middle of the ice.

“He plays so calm,” Pettersson said of his veteran teammate.

“We want to close quick and then break out the puck. And I felt like both of us played physical tonight. And, I mean, he doesn’t spend like a lot of time in the D (zone).”

Schenn was very happy for his young teammate.

“Man, he’s big,” Schenn, a large man himself, said of the younger Pettersson.

“It’s so easy to play with him,” Pettersson said. “He gives me confidence.”

Pettersson won the roars of the crowd for his fisticuffs. A sign of things to come?

“I just laid a hit there, and he came up to me and I had no choice,” he said.

“That’s a big part of my game to to kill plays and be physical.”

Drew O’Connor, Linus Karlsson and Max Sasson had a very good night. The line played fast and hard. Sasson was solid in the middle of the ice, while Karlsson was an absolute beast on the forecheck and O’Connor made strong plays.

The three players were at the right end of the ice all night, and were the first to right the Canucks’ ship after a rough 10 minutes at the start of the game.

Karlsson concurred with the assessment post-game.

“We were. I felt same way,” he grinned about how effective his line had played. He and Sasson understand Malhotra’s system well from their championship season in Abbotsford so he wasn’t surprised their line clicked so well, especially with skilled and savvy O’Connor skating alongside them.

“I always like to play with speed,” he remarked of his linemates’ talents.

“They can carry the puck a little bit better than me. It’s a good match: OC is so good at carrying the puck. He’s strong on the puck too and I did my thing around the net and the boards,” he added.

“I think we won a lot of puck battles. And if we lost it, like the second guy was there quick and we helped each other out. It felt really good.”

Can they be this steady all year? The fans want to see a team with heart, drive and energy and this line was full of it.

When you get three goals on the power play, you should win.

Tonight, the Canucks’ comeback was built off their power plays. Brock Boeser scored Vancouver’s first goal midway through the first, settling the team and getting them on the scoreboard after some good work by the Sasson line to draw a penalty.

They were looking a little lost after falling behind in the third, but some hard work by the second unit resulted in a goal for Zeev Buium.

Then there was the game winner, with a great read by Elias Pettersson the forward to feed Boeser in the slot.

“Butt goal,” Boeser confirmed post-game. He was playfully annoyed about Jake DeBrusk stealing credit for the goal but glad to finish the pre-season on such a high note.

It’s still going to take some time for them to get used to their new system, he said, but the veteran sniper is clearly confident he and his teammates will find their way.

He admitted the early stages of the game were ugly.

“After that we connected way more and started getting on the same page there and started going to work,” he said.

Full credit to his centreman Pettersson for making a quick pass on the winning goal, putting the puck right on Boeser’s stick.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty pass,” he said. “They’d kind of left the middle open there all night.”

A good night and a good finish to a short pre-season.

Bring on the regular season.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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