What's eating Elias Pettersson?

Things are not good in Vancouver. This we know. The Canucks' organization saw a young club who scratched and clawed their way to a decisive, second-round Game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights two summers ago and decided the time to push the chips in was now. 

As a result, the club is utterly and completely capped out. General manager Jim Benning dealt away the club's first-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. Vancouver doesn't own a second-round pick this year. It didn't own a second or third-round pick in 2020. 

The Canucks moved out prospects for rentals and this past summer, dealt out several bloated, soon-to-be-expiring contracts to take on Oliver Ekman-Larsson's equally bloated deal for six more seasons. 

The expectation was that they would be better today and would deal with the cap fallout later. The classic, "We'll let our future versions deal with that issue."

And what do they have to show for it? A 7-14-2 record, good enough for 28th in the league. A penalty-killing rate that is on pace to be the worst ever. Ever. A fanbase that has its pitchforks and torches out as it metaphorically marches down Griffiths Way. And a franchise player who looks like a ghost of his former self.

This leads us to today's topic. What exactly is eating Elias Pettersson?