Months after the New York Rangers acquired J.T. Miller from the Vancouver Canucks, breadcrumbs of what went wrong in Vancouver still continue to come out.
A reported tension between Miller and Elias Pettersson spread like rapid fire within the Canucks organization early on this season.
The feud dominated hockey headlines for a large part of the season and spiraled out of control around the Canucks organization.
Ultimately, the Canucks traded Miller to the Rangers on Jan. 31, ending a months-long saga, a saga that Canucks Jim Rutherford is claiming impacted the team’s play.
“I don’t believe the issue was limited to just two people,” Rutherford said. “It filtered through most of the team and affected our overall chemistry.”
It’s unclear exactly what triggered all of this dysfunction within the Canucks organization, but Miller did at least attempt to diffuse the situation.
“I genuinely think J.T. tried hard to help fix the situation,” Rutherford said. “Many within our organization worked on it. But once we reached a point where the organization collectively felt the situation couldn’t be fixed, we had to explore all possible options.”
After the trade, Miller played 32 games for the Rangers, recording 13 goals, 22 assists, and 35 points while averaging 18:31 minutes.
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