Insider hints at the real reason behind J.T. Miller's leave of absence.

There was a great deal of mystery surrounding the unexpected leave of absence taken by now former Vancouver Canucks star forward J.T. Miller earlier this season but for the first time a National Hockey League insider has provided a hint into the motivations behind that decision.

On Monday, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman discussed the recent trade that saw Miller sent to the New York Rangers and it was during his comments on that topic that he let slip a very interesting detail about Miller's sudden departure from his former team earlier in the season. Although Friedman did not go into any specific details regarding the nature of the incident, he did confirm that some type of incident had occurred involving Miller following a game against the Nashville Predators.

"They had the Nashville game and whatever happened after that game, and I've heard a couple different versions, and nobody will confirm it so I'm not gonna say it," said Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. "But whatever the case was J.T. Miller went on his leave."

I'll leave you to speculate on what the nature of that incident may have been but, given that this entire fiasco appears to have been fueled by personal animosity between Miller and former teammate Elias Pettersson, it seems fair to suggest that the fued between the two star forwards was at the center of that incident.

It sounds like whatever this incident was, it proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Miller's time in Vancouver. According to Friedman the hope was that the leave of absence would cool things off between Miller and Pettersson, but things would not work out that way in the end.

"When Miller came back from his leave things just didn't get better in terms of the relationship and the stress and things like that," said Friedman. "I think everybody hoped he would come back and things would change and they didn't. I think that was when the decision was made... that they were gonna move on."

It will be very interesting to hear the full details of what really went on when someone inevitably writes a book about it some day.