"Nobody is suprised that Cherry is being a biased xenophobe": NHL fans react to Don Cherry's harsh criticism of Canucks' Elias Pettersson

Elias Pettersson has 31 points from 43 games this season. By his standards, he has severely underperformed for the Vancouver Canucks. Because of his alleged locker room rift with JT Miller, the team has put both on the trade block for quite some time now. Recently, veteran coach Don Cherry gave his two cents on the matter.

On Monday's episode of the "Grapevine" podcast on Sunday, Don Cherry didn't mince his words about Pettersson. He pointed out that, since his production this year has been considerably low, no team is willing to take a gamble on him, especially when factoring in his massive annual average value and the incentives attached to his eight-year, $92.8 million contract.

“Nobody would want him,” Cherry said. “He’s the third-highest [paid player in the NHL]… he had one good year.”

Fans took to X to react to Cherry's comments. Some even stated that Cherry was being harsh on Elias Pettersson because he is a Swedish player. Back in 2019, the former coach was removed from Sportsnet's broadcast team in 2019 following comments made about immigrants living in Canada while he also had a history of being harsh towards non-English players of the sport.

"Nobody is surprised that Cherry is being a biased xenophobe. This is not news," a fan said.

"Cherry is a racist Swede hater. Sad to see him fall on his sword like this," another fan said.

"Can we stop paying attention to this guy? he stopped being relevant a decade before they finally took him off the air and did us all a favor," one fan said.

However, some fans backed Cherry's comments.

"Cherry speaks the harsh truth," a fan said.

"Not a point per game and making 10 mil a year. Not to mention how absent he was in the playoffs. The Don is right. Nucks have handcuffed themselves with that big contract," another fan said.

"Cherry is 💯 right. Pettersson has been a complete bust since signing his big payday," a fan said.

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Canucks president opens up about rift between Elias Pettersson and JT Miller

In an interview with the Daily Mail's Gary Mason, Canucks president of hockey operations, Jim Rutherford, opened up about the rivalry between Pettersson and Miller. As per Rutherford, the team believed they could resolve the issue, but it tends to resurface occasionally.

"I felt like for a long time that there was a solution here because everybody has worked on it, including the parties involved," Rutherford told Mason. “But it only gets resolved for a short period of time and then it festers again and so it certainly appears like there’s not a good solution that would keep this group together.”

With his words, it is surely only a matter of time before either of them are traded. Elias Pettersson has been closely linked to the Buffalo Sabres.