from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

There are eight games this season in which Elias Pettersson has failed to score a point, and the Vancouver Canucks haven’t won any of them. No wonder hockey coaches say you win or lose with your best players.

The Canucks have managed just two loser points – overtime losses to the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks – in the eight games Pettersson has been blanked. When the National Hockey League’s rookie-of-the-year has made it on to the scoresheet, Vancouver is 11-2-2.

That’s how important the just-turned 21-year-old is to the Canucks.

He scores, they win. He doesn’t score, they lose. It may not be fair, but it’s pretty simple.

In Thursday’s 6-3 win against the Nashville Predators, a slump-interrupting victory driven for two periods by the Vancouver power play and in the final one by goalie Jacob Markstrom, Pettersson had one goal and two assists with the man-advantage.

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