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Remember when Elias Pettersson won the NHL All-Star slap shot competition?

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That was 2020.

It’s wild to remember and then look at how many shots, total, Pettersson has taken this season.

Through six games, Pettersson has just nine shots on goal. For a player who has averaged 2.5 shots per game over his career, averaging just 1.5 per game so far this season stands out.

(Two of those nine shots are slap shots, for the record.)

Saying “he needs to shoot more” is the basic premise here — because if he’s shooting more that means he is getting into shooting spots more, and to get to shooting spots more means he’s moving his feet more, which means …

You get it.

Pettersson hasn’t scored an even-strength goal, in regular season or playoffs, since March 19 vs. Buffalo. He had just one goal in the playoffs last year.

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When you are making $11.6 million per season and people want to see you perform, it’s inevitable they are going to talk about how you’re not performing when you do.

Here’s a look at where things are, and aren’t, this season for the highest-paid player on the Vancouver Canucks:

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Zero goals in six games. That’s a tough stat to look at. And as we’ve noted above, a lack of shooting is a big factor here.

But some of it is also just bad luck.

With Pettersson on the ice at five-on-five, the Canucks are shooting at a below-average 7.0 per cent. Generally, teams score in the nines. For much of his career, the Canucks have scored on 11 to 12 per cent of their five-on-five shots with him on the ice.

So more goals with his line on the ice are coming.

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But will they be Pettersson’s?

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An intriguing thing when you dig into the numbers: Pettersson’s unblocked shot attempt rate at five-on-five is down about two attempts per 60 minutes compared to his 102-point season two seasons ago.

There are two possible reasons for this, both essentially opposite sides of the same coin.

There’s the possibility that teams are just getting better at taking away Pettersson’s shooting space. Or there’s the possibility that Pettersson’s lost his knack for finding space.

Overall, he’s actually only getting off one shot attempt less per 60 than he did two years ago … he’s just failing to hit the net. As noted above, his shot-on-net rate is about half what it has been in previous seasons.

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As Wayne Gretzky would tell you, it’s hard to score if you don’t shoot.

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The kinds of shots Pettersson is getting off are concerning too. He’s getting fewer high-danger chances — that is, shots from on top of the crease.

Other than his rookie season, he’s managed about 3.5 high-danger chances per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time over the past five seasons.

This season, though, he’s managed just 2.8 high-danger chances per 60 minutes.

That’s in just six games this season, so that rate isn’t all that indicative of future play. Stats don’t start to be predictive until we get about 20 games worth of data, so there’s time yet for Pettersson to push these numbers in a good direction.

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Here’s a reason to think this all will indeed swing Pettersson’s way. There’s lots of offense happening for the Canucks with Pettersson on the ice so far.

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Again, it’s just six games, but Pettersson has averaged 14:20 of five-on-five ice time this season, which would be the highest average of his career if this sustains over the whole season. He’s never averaged more than 14 minutes of even-strength ice time per game over a whole season.

More importantly, the Canucks’ shot attempt rate with him on the ice is up. The team is getting 61.4 shots per 60 minutes of five-on-five time.

That’s a fantastic rate and a good sign of the confidence the Canucks are feeling on offense right now.

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Here’s another reason to think Pettesson’s points are set to start showing up: the Canucks are shooting 20 per cent with him on the power play.

That’s well above the 15-ish per cent the Canucks’ power play has usually shot with Pettersson on the ice. The point is not that it’s likely to regress, which it will, but rather that this current hot streak will surely touch Pettersson at some point. Right?

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That said, Pettersson does need to find shots on the power play — that the biggest factor in why his overall shot rate is down. Sure he’s shooting a little less at five-on-five, but his power play shot rate is down roughly 67 per cent compared to his historical average.

Right now, he’s averaging just 9.1 shots per 60 minutes of power play time — his career rate is about 30 shots per 60 minutes of power play time.

Does that mean he has to make himself more of a shooting threat? Are the Canucks looking at him off?

Either way, he has to find a way to be more involved and less of a disappointment.

He’s getting involved at even strength. It’s hard to think he won’t be on the power play.

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