J.T. Miller's name popped up in trade rumours this week connected with the Pittsburgh Penguins. According to Penguins reporter Rob Rossi at The Athletic, it was the Vancouver Canucks that approached the Penguins about doing a deal.
Those trade talks broke down and the supposedly-injured Miller returned to the Canucks' lineup on Thursday against the Minnesota Wild, suddenly healed from a "week-to-week" injury.
So, what happened? According to TSN insider Darren Dreger on an appearance on TSN 1050 in Toronto, the Canucks turned the Penguins' offer down because it was entirely draft picks and they wanted to get a centre in return.
"The Pittsburgh Penguins, just maybe through desperation — Ron Hextall had lines in the water everywhere, including taking a hard run at J.T. Miller. A hard run," said Dreger. "Vancouver just said, 'We like the offer, we just can't take it because it was draft picks. We need a centreman and, frankly, we're not rebuilding in Vancouver and J.T. Miller is going to be a big part of our future.'"
ChekTV's Rick Dhaliwal had previously reported that the Canucks did not want to trade Miller without a young centre coming in and he confirmed that was still a potential breaking point in negotiations, lending further credibility to Dreger's report.
The Miller contract extension was a risky one for the Canucks, as it doesn't kick in until Miller is 30 and will take him until he's 37. Miller might be worth the contract for the first few years of the deal but it's one that could age very poorly, particularly if Miller also ages poorly. It's the type of contract that teams on the verge of Stanley Cup contention can justify but not one that is miles away from even making the playoffs.
Of course, the same could be said of a team trading away first and second-round picks for immediate help on the blueline.
The Canucks, specifically general manager Patrik Allvin, evidently don't look at the Miller contract extension as a mistake in need of correction.
"This is a really trick one for Patrik Allvin and the Vancouver Canucks because it's not just about creating cap space and getting whatever return you're gonna get for J.T. Miller," said Dreger. "It's about the message-sending to future players. This guy hasn't even started his contract extension at $8 million per on a mega contract — what are you saying to future unrestricted free agents when you trade a guy, who's a significant piece of the Vancouver Canucks?"
As always, reports from insiders should be taken with this one grain of salt in mind: who is the possible source? This may be just one side of the story, specifically the Penguins' side. It might be in the Penguins' best interests, especially as calls for general manager Ron Hextall to be fired have intensified, to push a story that makes them seem like they did everything they could to bring back a player of Miller's caliber, rather than what they got, which was Mikael Granlund.
