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Pettersson’s first season in the NHL and Bieksa’s last in the league both came with the 2017-18 Anaheim Ducks
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Published Sep 17, 2025 • 4 minute read
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Marcus Pettersson skates in his 500th career NHL game against the Seattle Kraken in March. Photo by Steph Chambers /Getty ImagesArticle content
There’s a Kevin Bieksa influence on this latest version of the Vancouver Canucks thanks to Marcus Pettersson.
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Pettersson’s first season in the NHL and Bieksa’s last in the league both came with the 2017-18 Anaheim Ducks, and Pettersson lists Bieksa as one of the veterans on that team that he learned the ropes from, along with fellow blueliner Francois Beauchemin and forwards Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.
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Pettersson, 29, is prepping for his first full season with Vancouver after coming over from the Pittsburgh Penguins in a trade last February. Five days after the swap, the Canucks signed the rangy Swede to a six-year contract extension with a cap hit of $5.5 million, looking to build up their rearguard corps.
Pettersson was a team-best plus-eight in his 31 games with the Canucks last season. The 6-foot-5, 174-pound left shot defender is the type Vancouver can call on for important match-up minutes against other team’s star players, the type who can play the last minute while protecting a lead. He averaged two minutes, 23 seconds of ice time per game on the penalty kill with Vancouver last season, which was a team high.
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Bieksa, 44, was a key member of the franchise’s best-ever defence group, a unit that also included Christian Ehrhoff, Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis and Sami Salo, and spearheaded that run to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final.
Kevin Bieksa competes against the Chicago Blackhawks during Game One of the Western Conference Semifinal Round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs on April 30, 2009 at General Motors Place Photo by Richard Lam /Getty Images
Bieksa played his last three seasons with the Ducks. He lives in Anaheim with his family and is a celebrated analyst on Hockey Night in Canada. He should be a frequent visitor to the Lower Mainland this winter, too, since his son Cole, 17, is a winger with the BCHL’s Coquitlam Express. Cole was a late cut from the WHL’s Vancouver Giants.
“I haven’t seen him around here yet,” Pettersson said with a smile when asked after an informal skate at UBC this week if he has had a conversation with Bieksa about coming to Vancouver. “I know that he had a great career here and the fans loved him and the organization loved him. I know he loved playing here, too.”
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“Just watching Beauchemin and Bieksa prepare every day and how long they did it and at the level they did it … there was Getzlaf and Perry, too … but for me, it was a lot of Beauchemin and Bieksa.
“You gain knowledge from everywhere you go. I was around veterans in Pittsburgh who had won Stanley Cups, and you look at what they do on a daily basis and try to implement it.”
His first hockey mentor was his father. Daniel Pettersson, 56, was a centre for 13 seasons with Skelleftea, their hometown pro team. He split time between the first and second tiers in Sweden.
“He quit playing when I was four or five, so I don’t remember too much about him playing, but just being around hockey that much was awesome for me,” Pettersson said. “He was my coach growing up. He never pushed me, but if I wanted to do something with hockey he had a lot of knowledge. I could always come to him for advice.
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“I call him about all stuff in life really, but hockey is one of the things.”
Pettersson now takes on that role model roll with Vancouver, and you would think that would be especially effective with Swedish rearguards Elias Pettersson, 21, and Tom Willander, 20.
“I think we have a good hungry group here that’s ready to go,” Marcus Pettersson said. “I think our compete level is very high. You see it even in things like these informal skates.
“I think we have our best years ahead of us here. And it’s a great place to live for my family. I have a two-year-old now. It’s not just myself to think about. I like Canada as a country and Vancouver is a great place. We fell in love as soon as we came here.”
Marcus Pettersson is congratulated at the bench after scoring a goal against the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena on April 12. Photo by Derek Cain /Getty Images
Anaheim took Pettersson in the second round (No. 38 overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft, two picks after the Canucks selected goaltender Thatcher Demko. The Ducks traded him to Pittsburgh in December 2018 for Daniel Sprong, the much-travelled winger who wound up having a nine-game stint in Vancouver last season.
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The Canucks landed Pettersson and winger Drew O’Connor from Pittsburgh for defenceman Vincent Desharnais, winger Danton Heinen, forward prospect Melvin Fernstrom, and a conditional first-round pick.
The pick wound up being No. 12 overall this past June, and the Philadelphia Flyers traded up for it, sending Pittsburgh the No. 20 and No. 31 overall selections in return. Philadelphia used that choice on Jack Nesbitt, a 6-foot-5, 185-pound centre who had 25 goals and 64 points last season in the OHL for the Windsor Spitfires.
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