Top Prospect Contender: Emilio Pettersen

A couple years ago, you could have been forgiven if you hadn’t heard of Emilio Pettersen. But over a pair of seasons in college hockey, Pettersen has emerged as one of the more exciting players in the Flames organization.

He’s not a gigantic player, but he’s quietly been one of the top players in the NCAA – both within his age group and overall.

A product of Manglerud – a district of Oslo, Norway – Pettersen rose to prominence as a youngster with a series of YouTube videos showcasing his sweet dangles. He utterly dominated U16 hockey in Norway during his 13-year-old season.

Looking for a challenge, Pettersen came over to North America. He played prep league hockey at 14 and 15, and USHL hockey at 16 and 17. On the basis of a strong season with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, he was the Flames’ sixth round selection in the 2018 NHL Draft.

He just completed his second season of college with the University of Denver Pioneers (before he even turned 20).

It takes a special kind of person to leave home at 14 to pursue their career. Pettersen crossed the ocean to play prep school hockey. He’s increased his production or jumped up a level in hockey every season for much of the past decade. He’s a worker.

For a player just a few years removed from prep school, Pettersen has been very impressive. Heck, compared to everyone in college hockey he’s been pretty impressive. He was 7th in NCAA scoring among under-20 players as a freshman and 5th among under-20 players as a sophomore. He was second on Denver in points as a freshman and lead them as a sophomore.

In short? He’s a productive player in a tough college conference. And he’s one of the top players, if not the top guy, on one of college’s best teams.

The big knock on Pettersen right now is that he hasn’t moved the needle a ton at even strength. More than half of his scoring in each of his first two seasons has been on the power play. He needs to prove he can be a dominant player at five on five, too.

Other than that? Pettersen’s played pretty well against grown men at a high level of hockey. He’s not huge, but he’s not teeny tiny either, and his style of play isn’t one that relies too much on elusive speed. He’s a good hand but it has yet to be seen if he can keep improving his two-way game. His overall ceiling isn’t quite clear.