Canucks’ J.T. Miller trade falls through

The Vancouver Canucks are at an impasse with star forwards J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. Both players are amid deep cold spells inspired by an off-ice rift, resulting in plenty of trade rumors. 

The team took one step forward in figuring out its plan with the duo on Saturday when Miller was nearly held out of Vancouver’s lineup to support a trade to the New York Rangers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The deal fell through and Miller ended up playing in Vancouver’s 3-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers. He contributed two primary points in the effort, his first scoring since he managed four points on Jan. 6.

Miller’s dwindling impact has become a focal point of Vancouver’s 4-6-0 skid. Head coach Rick Tocchet shared harsh words after benching the forward, insinuating that he had quit on his teammates amid another tough loss. Miller has seen his numbers crater since the calendar turned over. 

He has seven points in nine games — the most among any Canucks forwards — but he only scored in three of those outings. Miller has also posted a 40 percent goals-for percentage (GF%), the third-lowest of Vancouver’s top-six forwards behind Pettersson (25 percent) and Jake DeBrusk (33.3 percent).

While theatrics surround him, Miller is still an incredibly impactful forward. He has 31 points in 35 games this season, putting him on an 82-game pace of 73 points. That would be the lowest scoring Miller has managed in a full season since the 2019-20 campaign when he notched 72 points in his first year with the Canucks. 

He’s since been red-hot — recording 99 points in 2021-22, 82 points in 2022-23 and a career-high 103 points in 2023-24. No other Canuck has come close to Miller’s 433 points in 399 games since he joined the team, with Quinn Hughes’ 380 points in 401 games and Pettersson’s 375 points in as many games the next closest.

That would be an invaluable impact for the Rangers to acquire. They’re in the midst of a chaotic season, with similar rifts and trade rumors surrounding longtime Rangers Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad. 

A swap for Miller would likely have to involve one of those two, though Vancouver would need substantially more behind them to warrant moving its team’s top-scoring forward. 

The Rangers have enticing prospects in the gritty Brennan Othmann and ever-improving Gabe Perreault, but their depth falls quickly thin behind them. Perhaps it was the challenge of figuring out complementary pieces that ultimately pulled the rug from under the trade talks.

Nonetheless, this news is a sign of progress being made in moving Miller out of Vancouver. He’ll be one of the biggest names to watch as the NHL trade deadline approaches on March 7. Meanwhile, Pettersson is leaning toward sticking with the program that bet on him so many years ago. 

Vancouver drafted Pettersson fifth overall in the 2017 NHL Draft. He joined the team two seasons later and won the Calder Trophy for “Rookie of the Year” with 28 goals and 66 points in 71 games. He matched the scoring in three fewer games in his following year after improving on it slightly in Year 4 after Year 3 was limited by injuries. 

That all set up Pettersson for a smash season in the 2022-23 campaign, when he scored a career-high 39 goals and 102 points. It was the fifth most a Canucks player has scored since the turn of the century — behind the Sedin twins, Markus Naslund and Miller. 

While Miller has taken to dazzling scoring, Pettersson has donned the role of face of the franchise next to Hughes. Vancouver seems poised to hold onto that duo while trimming off negative impacts with this latest update.

In one additional note, Friedman also shared that Vancouver sent a clear message to teams to not tamper with its players — and that any teams wishing to talk to Miller or Pettersson would need approval first. 

It is believed that a few teams have been granted permission to talk with Miller, but none are currently speaking with Pettersson. Both forwards are signed for the foreseeable future — Petterson signed through 2031-32 with a $11.6M cap hit, and Miller signed through 2029-30 with a surprisingly cheap $8M price tag.