Contentious trade brewing between Canucks and Bruins?!

Trade rumours simply haven’t stopped swirling around Vancouver and some fans fear it will only come to an end once J.T. Miller or Elias Pettersson is moved by the Canucks.

In recent weeks, Miller has been linked to different teams, more especially the New York Rangers, where he spent almost six seasons after they selected him back in the 2011 NHL Draft, but it’s been made quite clear that the Canucks have been in conversations with several teams regarding Miller and Pettersson, and a new contender is apparently involved in those discussions.

According to Marco D’Amico who spoke to a source, the Boston Bruins are speaking with the Canucks about a potential trade that could include Miller or Pettersson.

“They’re talking to them,” an NHL executive source confirmed to D’Amico on RG.org.

While the source did not immediately specify which player was the preferred target for Bruins’ general manager Don Sweeney, he did say that Boston could be more inclined to pull the trigger on a Pettersson trade:

“I don’t know who for sure, but I know the Bruins want to get deeper and younger up the middle and not older,” the source said. “That seems like Pettersson, but it’s not about who they want; it’s about who the Canucks decide to move on from.”

That’s one important factor in a possible trade in Vancouver, it’s not about which one the Bruins would want to acquire but which center the Canucks want to move.

There is however a strong feeling that Vancouver would seek a center as part of a package return for Pettersson or Miller, which could rule out the Bruins as their trade partner… D’Amico points out that a top-4 defenseman or even a top prospect or a first-round pick ‘depending on where the acquiring team would likely be picking’ could be a return option in this transaction.

“I’m thinking [Mason] Lohrei or Matt Poitras on top of a player like Frederic or Zacha,” the first source told D’Amico.

The idea of Boston acquiring Miller or Pettersson has gotten a lot of people talking, especially after an intense rivalry kicked off between the two teams in 2011 when the Bruins hoisted the Stanley Cup in Vancouver.

The Bruins could face cap issues in this trade scenario and some pundits believe it could be one of the main reasons the transaction never materializes ahead of the March 7 deadline.