Confirmed rift between JT Miller and Elias Pettersson exposed in Vancouver!

There is a lot of noise around the Vancouver Canucks, especially this season, after star forward JT Miller missed about three weeks of action on a personal leave to reset. As he’s returned to the roster, the rumours have as well with one hinting at a rift between Miller and teammate Elias Pettersson. This is reportedly the main reason why the Canucks’ power-play has struggled seeing that head coach Rick Tocchet took turns playing them on the first unit but wouldn’t use them together.

Former head coach Bruce Boudreau spoke about the relationship between Miller and Pettersson during his time with the Canucks and explained on TSN’s Over Drive how he had to navigate the situation back then.

“The easy [thing] would be to say yes, it is a problem and I knew they had a little bit of a problem between them before I got there but I thought that was all straightened out,” said Boudreau.

“What I think the point production wise, is that Miller was always getting [Brock] Boeser and [Conor] Garland – this was before [Jake] DeBrusk starting scoring – and you’d end up [with] Petey getting [Ilya] Mikheyev and [Dakota] Joshua as a line. So I think the line discrepancies in Vancouver, scoring-wise, he didn’t have the wingers he needed to score. Like, when he was getting 100 points the year with me, he was playing the wing with Miller and Boeser, or he was playing the wing with [Bo] Horvat. So, I think a lot of it has to do with who he’s playing with and how good the rate of the power play is going with him.”

It was believed that both players had put everything in the past, but at this time, you have to wonder if that’s all true.

“I’m hoping that it’s not a situation. I haven’t phoned anybody and I don’t want to. People have been asking me to phone and get the nitty-gritty going here. I don’t want to phone and I don’t want to find out whether they’re having a problem with each other because I think they’re both great players.”

“It shouldn’t be happening. I’m one of those guys that wants to dig my head in the sand right now and not know if they hate each other… I like both the guys a lot and I don’t want to see one’s being a real butthead to the other one.”

Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal spoke about the reported rift between the two star forwards on Thursday, adding that this “isn’t a media fabrication..”

In the 10 games Miller missed during his leave of absence, Pettersson recorded points in eight of those contests; six of those eight were multi-point games for a total of 15 points. In the five games since Miller has returned, Pettersson has zero points and a -4 rating.

I feel like Tocchet needs to address this directly with his two players if there is indeed a rift and find a solution quickly.
Both Pettersson and Miller are elite players and hopefully mature men that can move past whatever this is and focus on the Canucks’ success.