The dekes, the rushes, the pinpoint passing, the whisper-perfect one-time goals.Those sizzle-reel highlights were absent from Elias Pettersson’s game last season. We didn’t see those moments that made Pettersson so electrifying, so everything-changing in Vancouver. Truthfully, we haven’t seen them in a while.During the 2025-26 campaign, Pettersson recorded 21 five-on-five points in 74 games. It was the lowest total of his career with the exception of his injury-shortened campaign in 2021, and even then Pettersson had 14 five-on-five points in 26 games.Pettersson still led all Canucks players in overall scoring, but when you look at the rate stats and adjust for his ice time, he was a less prolific five-on-five producer on a point-per-hour basis than the likes of Teddy Blueger, Max Sasson and Drew O’Connor.How is that the level a player of Pettersson’s immense quality has hit? The level that he has roughly sustained, in fact, for two and a half seasons now.Pettersson was once worth the price of admission. He dominated on Broadway, ruthlessly spammed Andrei Kuzmenko with backdoor feeds, centred the Lotto Line to Perfection Line levels of two-way brilliance, turned a playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights with his work at the net front as a 20-year-old and had a 40-goal, 100-point season before he turned 25.Can the Sedins change the Canucks’ culture?Sean Gentille and Thomas DranceIt’s inconceivable that the player we watched do all of that helped this team generate shots on goal at a lower rate in his ice time last season than what the Canucks managed in David Kämpf’s five-on-five minutes.We just aren’t seeing the same attacking juice or offensive confidence that once defined Pettersson’s game. He isn’t playing as quickly or moving as fast, and that’s a quantifiable fact, based on NHL Edge data. His trademark shot has lost several ticks of velocity as well.One gets the impression watching Pettersson play that he’s actually worked to adjust his game to his new, less dynamic reality. That Pettersson has become more conscious of limiting mistakes, and more passive in prioritizing attacking his opponents.He can still generally hang in top-of-the-lineup usage from a two-way standpoint, and there’s no questioning that he’s commendably willing to lay his body on the line to block shots.Limiting mistakes and blocking shots might be an important part of winning games, but on any winning team, a first-line centre’s most memorable sequences aren’t the shots they blocked.So can Pettersson regain his form as an elite attacking centre? Can he find, as Manny Malhotra framed it in his introductory news conference, the joy in the game that was once abundantly expressed when you watched Pettersson play?It’s difficult to imagine. Then again, so is this inexplicable two-and-a-half-year stretch of low-risk, juiceless attacking hockey that Pettersson has just endured.2. Can Marco Rossi sustain his post-Olympic break breakout?Rossi has a fascinating profile.He will celebrate his 25th birthday during the preseason next month, and while Rossi has been a productive player at a precocious age, he’s yet to really live up to the star potential that made him a top-10 pick in 2020.It’s worth dwelling on that potential at somewhat greater length. As an 18-year-old in the OHL, Rossi managed a completely ridiculous 120 points in 56 games in a pandemic-shortened season leading into his draft year. In the past 20 years, only two forwards have produced at a better points-per-game rate in the OHL at the same age: Patrick Kane and Washington Capitals prospect Ilya Protas (the Capitals might be a problem this season).Rossi’s development was waylaid shortly thereafter when he contracted COVID and dealt with myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation) that caused him to miss the entirety of the 2020-21 campaign.In his age-20 and -21 seasons, however, Rossi was dominant in the AHL and played in a small handful of NHL games.