We won't go as far as claiming we're happy about it, but the Vancouver Cancucks have finally admitted what was already known. After month of denials, playing the matter down and attempting to blame the media, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford admitted there is a major issue between J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson.
As per Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail (subscription required), Rutherford said there is no good solution, after every attempt to resolve the issue. With it also impacting the entire locker room, there is no way to avoid the reality that one of the two players has to be traded.
This is such an unusual situation, when you have a team which came into the season predicted to be genuine contenders, now has to get rid of one of their most talented players, no matter which one leaves. There is also the reality with the Cancucks, where they have accepted they are unlikely to get fair value in exchange, no matter if it's Miller or Pettersson who is traded.
There is of course the question of which one is going to be moved, with a strong argument to be made either way. However, it seems as if The Athletic has decided to pick a side, at least in a manner of speaking.
J.T. Miller is on the way out of Vancouver
Chris Johnston has unveiled the fourth edition of his NHL trade board for The Athletic (subscription required), with a review of 32 players. For some context, Johnston ranks the players based on a few factors, including how closely they demand watching, their potential impact and the current amount of buzz around them.
Taking this all into account, Johnston has ranked Miller right at the top at number one, while placing Pettersson very last at number 32. In this respect, he writes that the Canucks have shifted their focus to trading Miller, although while claiming Pettersson is safe for now, knows the team has still had talks with other organisations about him.
Of course we appreciate that Johnston has plenty of contacts as a top NHL insider, but we do still find it interesting that he has such a disparity in ranking the two players, and more to the point that it's Miller he puts at number one. If nothing else just because -- unlike Pettersson -- the 2011 first round draft pick has a full no-movement clause this season.
In addition, you can argue it's more financially beneficial to get rid of Pettersson, given he is just in the first season of an eight-year deal with an average annual cap hit of $11.6 million, In comparison, Miller has an average annual cap hit of $8 million, which concludes following the 2029-30 season.
Now there is the flip side to all this, in that Pettersson has the higher upside, even though he is struggling slightly more for productivity this season compared to his teammate. In addition, at 26 the Sweden native is considerably younger than the soon to be 32-year-old.
Elias Pettersson getting more love from the Canucks
The point to all this, is just that we believe the two Canucks centres should be closer in the rankings, in respect of which one the team would be better off trading. Although, as we recently wrote, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman did claim Pettersson's preference was to remain in Vancouver and that the team was of the same opinion.
At one point, we really did refuse to believe that the two top tier talents couldn't find a way to resolve their issues, but now realise this just isn't possible. We have no doubt that Miller and Pettersson have indeed tried their best to get past this, but it truly must be bad given how this has all played out.
As a result, Canucks fans are going to have to accept their team will likely be weakened at some point between now and the Mar. 7 trade deadline, even if there is that saying about addition by subtraction. And by all accounts it will be Miller on the move, which might still not entirely resolve the locker room issue, depending on who he is close to and for anyone who might have taken his side over Pettersson's.
Overall, this is just a messy situation which unfortunately cannot be avoided or resolved satisfactorily for everyone concerned. However, if a trade helps get the Canucks back on track then so be it, with it actually being extremely impressive that they've remained in playoff contention throughout the whole affair.