When we last checked in on the feud destroying the Vancouver Canucks and the brains of a dozen Lower Mainland sports talk radio hosts a month ago, the team was “leaning toward a major roster change.” Just as well: The Canucks had lost five of their last seven games and were about to start a new four-game losing streak. But what kind of change? Though J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson both denied rumors of a rift between Vancouver’s top two centers, the rest of the team sang a different tune.
“I think those things are normal. They’re going to happen,” Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said at the time, in response to “the reports […] out there.” Head coach Rick Tocchet made things sound especially grim: “You don’t have to play PlayStation together. You don’t have to go to dinner together.” The rumors swirled on. The only way forward seemed to be for the Canucks to get rid of either Miller or Pettersson, and indeed that's what happened: Miller was traded to the Rangers on Friday evening. Let’s see how they got there.
JAN. 4
Former Canucks general manager Brian Burke joins national reporter Jeff Marek’s hockey podcast, The Sheet, to discuss the rift, among other subjects. What shocks Burke is not that friction or discord exists in a locker room—from his experience as a player and as an executive, he thinks it’s pretty normal—but the fact that Vancouver’s drama has spilled into the open and publicly festered for so long.
MAREK: Once upon a time, just two guys would roll up their sleeves and settle it and it would be done. It would be over and it would be done with, and everybody would just move along. But there’s a sort of generation gap in between these two as well. Very, very different personalities. I actually like when veteran players get on younger players and push them to be better—in things like in practice, in finishing checks, in all types of things that involve the game. But it seems in this case … it seems as if this was more than just expectations of the player on the ice. Which leads me to believe if they can’t get this thing settled, do they have to trade one or the other?
BURKE: That’s a last resort. At some point, it will come to that. We’re talking big contracts on guys who, because of the contracts, are underperforming. You’re not going to get full value right now. Elias Pettersson’s not going to fight J.T. Miller.
MAREK: No.
BURKE: Someone else will have to do it. Someone else will have to grab J.T. after practice and say, "I’m sick of this garbage. Let’s sort it out now. You’re too big for this guy, you’re too good a fighter, but I’m not, I’m good and I can take you out. Let’s see if we can sort it out." That might be what it needs to be, some trial-by-combat thing that sorts this out. That might be what happens. You’re right, when I played, we would fight to solve this. And it’s not a good method of resolving disputes, I know. I know a lot of people scratched their heads saying, "Did he just say they should fight?" Yes.
JAN. 18
On a special Hockey Day in Canada broadcast hosted by Ron MacLean, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shares a frustrating rift update.
MACLEAN: Let’s start with Vancouver, this saga.
FRIEDMAN: So it continues. Now, J.T. Miller, I expect, is going to play tonight, unless something changes at the last minute, but there was a time over the last 24 hours where J.T. Miller was not going to play. He was going to be held out of the lineup because talks were progressing on a trade—I believe that team to be with the New York Rangers. I don’t know exactly what happened, but that trade is off right now. So there’s nothing close that would prevent Miller from playing, but things have progressed to a certain point where it definitely looked like he wasn’t going to play.
After the Canucks defeat the Oilers 3-2 that night, reporters ask Miller about the trade rumors.
REPORTER: If this was your last game in Vancouver, what has it meant to you to play here?
MILLER: I’m not getting into this. I’m planning on being a Canuck today, tomorrow. Whatever happens happens, and I’m focused on the next game.
JAN. 28
The Canucks have won two straight games! Ready to celebrate this Victory Tuesday, fans instead wake up to news that Canucks president Jim Rutherford has given a weirdly frank interview to Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason about the team’s apparently untenable situation:
In the past, he has always felt like he could find a solution to any tricky situation, Rutherford told The Globe and Mail during an interview on Monday, “and I felt like for a long time that there was a solution here because everybody has worked on it, including the parties involved.”
“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.”
[…]
“We’re talking about two of our top players,” Rutherford said. “Certainly, our two best forwards. It can really be tough on a franchise – not only present but into the future – when you’re planning on peaking this team into a contending team and then you find out that’s not going to happen. Or at least it’s not going to happen with the group we have now. Then you have to put together a new plan.”
The interview naturally triggers a sports talk radio circus. Rick Dhaliwal, a decently sourced-up insider-type Vancouver radio guy who has been very sensitive about insinuations that the rift was created by the media, gloats on the show he co-hosts with Don Taylor, Donnie and Dhali.
DHALI: Oh boy. Well first of all, there it is. It’s not a media fabrication. It’s not made up. It’s not us making crap up. This is the president of the Vancouver Canucks, folks. For all those, who ripped the media—you guys are to blame, you guys make crap up—this is the president saying to you that Miller and Pettersson have had a feud for a long time, they’ve worked on it, it gets better for a little bit, then it comes back, it festers again. Donnie, I just love it. I love it for that crowd that loves to blame the media for crap. THIS is the president, Don, of the Vancouver Canucks saying Pettersson and Miller ABSOLUTELY have issues.
DONNIE: We’re going to get to our Waddling Dog poll question in a bit … I was thinking after last night, Miller getting a big goal, the Canucks winning, and a fight, maybe our poll question could be "Should the Canucks keep both Pettersson and Miller?" I was going to come in this morning and say that’s going to be our poll question. It’s not going to be our poll question.
DHALI: No, it’s not!
The show’s Waddling Dog Pub poll question ends up being “Who do you blame for this situation?” Pettersson receives 16.6 percent of the vote; Miller receives 18.6 percent of the vote; management receives 46.9 percent of the vote; the media, despite Dhali’s protestations, receives 17.9 percent of the vote.
JAN. 29
Reporters speak to Miller before the Canucks’ game in Nashville.
REPORTER: What’s your reaction to Jim Rutherford’s comments yesterday or this week on the situation with you and Petey?
MILLER: I don’t have one.
REPORTER: You don’t have any comments?
MILLER: No.
REPORTER: Is it still all good between you two guys?
MILLER: I’m not commenting on this.
JAN. 31
J.T. Miller is traded back to the New York Rangers, who traded him to the Lightning in 2018. The Canucks lose to the Stars, 5-3. After the game, reporters speak with Pettersson.
REPORTER: I know that you guys wanted to downplay it, but the president came out and said there had been some problems and one guy had to go. Do you hope that this will allow you to breathe a little bit more and grow into the player you want to be?
PETTERSSON: I don’t want to get into that. I mean, all we can do is look forward. I mean, now—I don’t even know what to say. All we can do is look forward.
FEB. 1
J.T. Miller scores two goals in his first game back as a Ranger.
FEB. 2
J.T. Miller logs two assists in his second game back as a Ranger. The Canucks lose to the Red Wings in overtime, 3-2.
I am genuinely not sure what anyone in Vancouver will talk about anymore.
