Canucks by the numbers: On the 12 ways of Elias Pettersson …

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On the heels of Elias Pettersson’s astounding five-point night on Thursday, leading the Vancouver Canucks to a thrilling 6-5 shootout win over the visiting Seattle Kraken, here are a dozen things to know about the Swedish star centre’s sensational season so far:

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1

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No Canuck has scored more points than Pettersson’s 39 this season.

He’s on pace for 104 points in the 2022-23 campaign.

If he hits triple digits, he’ll be the first Canuck since Daniel Sedin in 2010-11 to break the 100-point barrier. Sedin had 104 points that season.

“He’s one of the best players in the league,” Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau said this week.

2

Only one Canucks regular has a better shot-attempts for percentage than Pettersson, and that would be his regular linemate Andrei Kuzmenko.

The Canucks are taking 50.1 per cent of shot attempts while Pettersson is on the ice, second only to Kuzmenko’s 51.3 per cent.

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3

Elias Pettersson has the third best points-scoring rate in the entire NHL.

He’s scoring 3.5 points per 60 minutes of five-on-five time, behind only the Buffalo Sabres’ Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson among players who have played at least 250 minutes at five on five.

4

With Pettersson on the ice this season at even strength, the Canucks are scoring 4.38 goals per 60 minutes, the best rate of his career.

In a league where scoring four goals generally gets you a win, Pettersson’s ability to drive his team’s offence is massive.

Pettersson’s rate is far and away the best on the Canucks, a testament to how truly important he is to their success.

His goals-for per 60 is the fifth best in the league among players who have played at least 250 minutes at five on five, behind Skinner and Thompson, Dallas’s Roope Hintz and Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk.

5

Thursday was the second time this season Pettersson has tallied five points in a game — he also had five points in the Canucks’ 8-5 win over the Anaheim Ducks Nov. 3 — and the fourth time in his career.

No Canuck has recorded more five-point nights in his career than Pettersson.

Alex Mogilny now has the second-most with three five-plus point games in his career.

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Pettersson is tied for fourth most five-plus-point games among Swedish-born NHLers. Kent Nilsson and Peter Forsberg each had nine five-plus-point games in their careers, tied for the most.

The Washington Capitals’ Nicklas Backstrom has record five or more points five times.

Boudreau, who coached Backstrom in Washington, said last month that Pettersson reminded him of Backstrom.

“He wants to win. He wants to compete. He wants to do it all. And he does it in a quiet manner, but it’s a very positive manner,” he said.

6

Pettersson is sixth on the team in average ice time per game. He’s playing 19:51 per game, behind Quinn Hughes (25:07), Bo Horvat (21:00), J.T. Miller (20:53), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (20:38) and Tyler Myers (20:30).

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7

Pettersson is one of the most efficient goal scorers in the NHL. He has scored at the seventh highest rate among players who have played at least 250 minutes at five on five: 1.66 goals per 60 minutes.

Thompson and Skinner, again, are both ahead of him, as well as league leader Jared McCann, Sidney Crosby, Cole Caufield and Andrei Svechnikov.

8

Pettersson is in his fifth NHL season. He’s already the eighth highest scoring Swede in Canucks history.

He has tallied 260 points in 275 career games.

The Sedins, Markus Naslund, Thomas Gradin, Alex Edler, Patrik Sundstrom and Mattias Ohlund recorded more during their Vancouver stints.

Ohlund is 65 points ahead of Pettersson, so if Pettersson continues to score at his present rate he’ll pass the longtime hard-rock blueliner shortly before the end of the season.

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9

The Canucks have won nine times this season when Pettersson scores. He’s scored in 13 games in all.

10

Pettersson’s shootout goal on Thursday was the 10th of his NHL career.

Four of those scores have been shootout winners.

He has taken 29 shootout attempts in his career.

11

Remarkably, Pettersson hasn’t scored a power-play goal this season. He does have 11 assists in 2022-23.

Teams have taken away his shot off the side boards, but that’s opened up goal-scoring opportunities for his teammates, especially Bo Horvat (nine power-play goals), Andrei Kuzmenko (seven) and J.T. Miller (six).

“Even though he doesn’t have the most power-play points, he is such a threat that people, they really have to watch him on that side. When you take him away from there, it makes it an awful lot easier to just to cover the other guys,” Boudreau said.

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12

Going into Friday’s game in Edmonton, Pettersson has tallied more than one point in 12 games so far this season in all.

He doesn’t like watching games. Asked after Thursday’s win about how hard it was to watch the two games he missed earlier this week because of the flu, he smiled.

“It was a great win today,” he quipped, making it clear he hated having to watch his team struggle.

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