To me this management team is pretty clearly excellent at certain aspects of running the team and abjectly terrible at others.
Our pro scouting moves have generally been excellent, and the team has also done extremely well to cut bait on moves that didn't work out (Lindholm) and even getting out from bad contracts without paying too much of a price (Mikheyev). The team mostly has not overpaid on contracts and amateur scouting has so far looked reasonably competent.
On the other hand, almost every significant HR issue has been handled extremely poorly, and often publicly. Rachel Doerrie. Zadorov's comments about being dissuaded from signing because of the team's conduct in negotiations. Letting the team's best two forwards getting into an intractable feud in the first place. Now having the team president come out, unprompted, to publicly discuss the problem JUST as the team started to string good performances together and get results. Just a bunch of arrogant, unforced errors that have demonstrably hurt the team's performance.
I like this management team overall and have a lot of confidence in their ability to make hockey moves, but the professionalism problem in the organization is real and is going to continue to negatively affect the on ice product if they can't sort it out.
I may be on an island with this one, but I think JR is a shrewd customer for doing this interview right after winning 2 games.
Take the heat off the coach. Take it off his defense. Take it off his GM. Restate what was already known. Increase the potential timeline for a Miller move.
What did he lose? People calling him senile for confirming what already know. Small price.
Ok, now what did he gain? The attention is on him, and not on the organization for prolonging the drama. While at the same time, he obfuscates the timeline of a move after a few wins. The implication being that they can still win in the interim and trading teams lose out on Miller for their respective playoff runs.
This is what a cunning manager does. The shock just has to wear off in order to see it.
Sounds like miller is being traded no matter what
Which is the most reasonable read of the situation, I think.
Miller is open enough to leaving, and is talking to other teams, so he goes for sure. There's enough there to suggest it's an even decision for him (wanting out or resigned to being out). In either case, he doesn't want to be here bad enough to invoke his NTC. He goes regardless.
For Pettersson, it's about resetting the forward corps entirely, against his wish to stay. They have control sans NTC, so they can see what happens.