J.T. Miller talks about trade rumours and more in recent interview

For what feels like forever, Vancouver Canucks forward J.T. Miller has been involved in trade rumours.

Radio, podcasts and blogs (like this one) kept creating content on Miller trade rumours and speculation. But talks about the Canucks making trades have been quiet for weeks.

Miller himself spoke about the trade rumours from his offseason home in Pittsburgh about being the subject of trade rumours, his 99-point season and more on the latest episode of Dropping The Fights Podcast hosted by former NHL enforcer (and All-Star) John Scott and Tim Dubya.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Scott and Dubya asked some good questions and it was a pretty lighthearted interview. It is worth the listen.

Miller on the trade rumours and contract extension talks

To no one’s surprise, Miller revealed that he and the Canucks are still far apart in terms of contract talks. He spoke about how he wants to stay in Vancouver but will understand if things don’t work out.

“It’s a new fit for our management, it’s new for us,” he said. “They were there for, you know, three months. They have a lot of decisions to make on a lot of players. So far to this point with the negotiations, we’re not as close as we’d like to be. So I’m not 100% sure Everybody has a vision. As I said from day one, I want to be there but, that being said, if it’s not meant to be, I understand that too. Trust me, I’d like to have a deal done in Vancouver and I want to be there but, at the same time, I have to respect everybody’s vision and if that doesn’t line up, it is what it is.”

Miller was also asked if there were talks after the Canucks season ended. It turns out, there was.

“Well, what we do a lot of talking about the season and why we aren’t in the playoffs and you know, the future,” he said. “We definitely, were under the impression we were going to negotiate a little bit for an extension this summer. We did that pretty early on and like I said, it just didn’t really go the way…or everybody, but obviously not for me. Patrik (Allvin) and Jim (Rutherford), they haven’t been here long (and) they have a lot of hard decisions to make. Then they had to draft right away and free agency. It’s been a kind of a crazy thing.”

Miller also scoffed at the constant rumours on the internet.

“Everything that on the internet that, the media drove themselves crazy all summer,” said Miller. ” I mean, there was nothing real on the internet all summer. There was every time a team pops up, you know, every time somebody said something 99% of that was not real. It’s a rumour mill and when you play in Vancouver, it’s nonstop. I was traded to the Penguins 20 times this summer. I don’t know if you heard about it. There’s a lot of BS going on with the internet and all that.”

Elias Pettersson, the coaching change and killing penalties

Miller spoke about what it was like playing with Pettersson.

“You mentioned Pettersson, I’ve been his biggest critic, Tim loves him,” said Scott. “I can’t stand him and I don’t know why. I assume he has a terrible work ethic. I’ve questioned all that about him and I’ve never met him, it’s just a perception I get from him.”

That is a very strong impression of someone Scott hasn’t met. Keep in mind, Boudreau once called Pettersson the hardest working guy on the ice during a practice last season. That was when Pettersson was going through his first-half slump.

Back to Miller. He talked about playing on Pettersson’s wing and the differences between playing centre or wing.

“You know, it’s funny because when we play together, even over the last two years…he was the centre but I took the faceoffs,” said Miller. “When I lost it, you’re not switching, so I’m staying in the defensive zone or centre ice. There’s not a whole lot of change, to be honest. We both have a good understanding of how to play both. He obviously has less experience playing wing than I do. But he’s so talented and the skill, you can pick it up at any time. As we saw last year, I mean, the second half of the year, he was borderline unstoppable. So you know, he’s a really good, good player, definitely a guy you want on your side with that much skill level he has.”

Boudreau replacing Travis Green behind the bench really brought new life into the Canucks last season. Miller talked about the poor start under Green and what Boudreau brought as head coach.

“I think the coaching change and like the atmosphere change I think that was good for a lot of players,” he said. “Nothing foul towards the coaches we had with Travis being the head coach, Travis was great for our group but I think that the fresh start really seemed to light a spark. I mean, for Petey, especially because once Bruce got there he was like we just talked about. He was so good.

“At the beginning of the season when Travis was there, we just couldn’t win a game. It didn’t matter what we did…We were losing every game three to two because our penalty kill gave up two or three goals a game. We just couldn’t keep the puck out.”

Speaking of the penalty kill, Miller spoke about his role in that.

“I really like playing on the penalty kill,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in it. I take a lot of faceoffs too, so I think that’s good as I like to have that chance to wind the puck down the ice and you know, that’s what is something Bruce did when he came. He got Petey on the penalty kill and some of them are more skilled guys on the penalty kill. But I’ll tell you right now his reads because of how good he has on the power play, I think that helps. When the powerplay guys PK, they can kind of think one step ahead as if they were on the man advantage.”

It looks very likely that Miller will still be with the Canucks once training camp begins next month. What will they do with him by the trade deadline next season? We shall see.