How did Elias Pettersson’s season stack up against the 2023 Selke nominees, and why wasn’t he nominated instead?

The Vancouver Canucks have won exactly one Frank J. Selke Trophy — an award handed out each year to “the National Hockey League forward who demonstrates the most skill in the defensive component of the game” as deemed by the PHWA — in their 50+-year franchise history (though the award only started being handed out in ’78.)

The sole winner was Ryan Kesler back in the storied 2010/11 season. Before that, and since then, the Canucks haven’t so much as pick up a nomination.

There are those who thought that might change as of 2022/23, with Elias Pettersson having put up a 102-point campaign that also included a truly stellar and consistent performance in his own end. Within one season, Pettersson (re-)established himself as the Canucks’ most impactful player offensively, defensively, and just in general terms of controlling the play on the ice, which are all typical hallmarks of the Selke nominee.

Alas, nominated he was not. The three Selke nominees this year will be Patrice Bergeron — looking to win his record-extending sixth award — along with Nico Hischier and Mitch Marner.

So, why not Pettersson? We decided to stack each player’s season up against each other to see how they measured up, and why PHWA voters might have had Pettersson coming up short.

Goals For and Against

They say that plus-minus is a flawed stat, and it is. A player can have one foot on the bench already and get either a plus or a minus despite being entirely uninvolved in the play. A great defender on a bad team might end up with a dismal rating because they’re constantly on the ice covering up their teammates flaws. On the whole, as a stat, it doesn’t really work.

But still, one of the first things that Selke voters consider when picking out their nominees is a player’s rate of goals for and against, specifically at even-strength — which is really just plus-minus with a few steps taken out.

	Even-Strength Avg TOI	On-Ice Goals For	On-Ice Goals Against	On-Ice Goal Differential
Pettersson	14:55	80	65	+15
Bergeron	12:14	64	27	+37
Hischier	14:13	83	50	+33
Marner	15:25	74	55	+19

From NaturalStatTrick.com

Here, despite all three nominees having reputations as workhorses, Pettersson wound up playing more even-strength minutes than all but Marner. He was on the ice for more goals against than any of them — including almost 40 more goals against than Bergeron — but also a high number of goals for. That’s partly a reflection of the quality of Pettersson’s team, a point we’ll return to often in this article, and also of their ‘run-and-gun’ setup.

The on-ice goal differential does heavily favour Bergeron and Hischier here, and especially Bergeron with his truly ridiculous results. But Pettersson does compare very favourably to Marner, especially once quality of teammates is taken into consideration, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Control of Play

Of course, nobody just looks at the surface-level numbers anymore. Fancy stats rule the day, and you rarely get a sniff of the Selke without posting a sparkling set of analytics.

	Corsi	xG	Shot Control	Chance Control	High-Danger Chance Control
Pettersson	51.99%	51.85%	52.50%	52.06%	52.10%
Bergeron	59.20%	62.87%	59.70%	61.95%	62.41%
Hischier	55.55%	57.50%	61.39%	59.57%	61.30%
Marner	52.73%	52.44%	52.67%	56.88%	54.80%

From NaturalStatTrick.com, at even-strength

Here, once again, Bergeron and Hischier stand head and shoulders above the pack, with the sort of possession and control stats that are only achieved by a handful of players each year. Cracking the 60% threshold is impressive for anyone, and even more so for a skater employed often in defensive and matchup situations.

Bergeron’s team, for example, gets about 25% more high-danger chances than their opponents when he’s on the ice. That’s considerable.

Again, Pettersson’s numbers compare best to Marner’s, though Marner is at least slightly ahead pretty much across the board. This is an area in which Pettersson can be seen to be approaching Selke territory, but is perhaps not quite there yet.

It is also, naturally, a bit of a reflection of the quality of the team. Linemates contribute heavily to “on-ice” statistics, and each of the three nominees skated with higher-quality linemates than Pettersson.

Penalty Killing

Those deemed “defensive forwards” are almost always expected to kill penalties. That was a mostly new duty for Pettersson in 2022/23, but one in which he did show extremely well.

	Avg Shorthanded TOI	Power Play Goals Against Per 60	Shorthanded Points
Pettersson	1:48	8.78	9
Bergeron	1:46	3.47	2
Hischier	2:06	6.00	4
Marner	2:17	7.21	5

From NHL.com

One might be surprised to learn that Pettersson killed more penalties, on average, than Bergeron, though a fair bit less than Hischier and Marner.

Pettersson’s rate of getting scored against while shorthanded is the highest of this bunch, but it’s important to remember the context: for the first half of the season, Pettersson’s Canucks were the worst penalty-killers in history. That he recovered well enough to have his rate be in the same ballpark as Marner’s is thus pretty notable, as are those nine shorthanded points, which led the league.

But no one can really hold a candle to Bergeron’s almighty PK efficiency. A good chunk of the league gets scored on more at even-strength than Bergeron does shorthanded, and that’s all that really needs to be said about that. He should probably be considered among the greatest penalty killers of all-time by now.

Quality of Competition and Deployment

When it comes to Quality of Competition, all nominees and Pettersson spent the majority of their time playing against opposing top-sixes, and were well above the league average.