Jim Rutherford, president of hockey operations for the
Vancouver Canucks, made a career as a small 5-foot-8 goaltender by overcoming any obstacles in his way, but he’s facing one now that he can’t seem to get past. He has two star players who apparently can’t stand one another: top centres J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. And it’s put him and the organization in an unfathomable bind.
In the past, he has always felt like he could find a solution to any tricky situation, Rutherford told The Globe and Mail during an interview on Monday, “and I felt like for a long time that there was a solution here because everybody has worked on it, including the parties involved.”
“But it only gets resolved for a short period of time and then it festers again and so it certainly appears like there’s not a good solution that would keep this group together.”
While that may not come as a huge surprise to the Vancouver market – both players’ names have been connected to trades amid reports they have repeatedly clashed – it is still sobering to hear when the president of the team confirms it. And when he admits there is no solution that is likely to make anyone happy, well, then, reality really does sink in.
Of course, personality differences exist in every NHL dressing room. For as long as the league has existed, there have been situations where players haven’t liked one another. You would think that in this case, an alpha male who likes to push his weight around like Miller, 31, and a more sensitive and soft-spoken player like Pettersson, 26, could put their differences aside for the good of the team. But apparently not.
“We’ve had those conversations and I think the parties understand that and I think they’ve tried,” Rutherford said. “As you know, sometimes emotions get deep and as much as people try sometimes you can’t get over it. It certainly appears that’s what’s going on here.”
It is, to put it mildly, a problem that could end up impacting the Canucks for years.
“We’re talking about two of our top players,” Rutherford said. “Certainly, our two best forwards. It can really be tough on a franchise – not only present but into the future – when you’re planning on peaking this team into a contending team and then you find out that’s not going to happen. Or at least it’s not going to happen with the group we have now. Then you have to put together a new plan.”
Last year, this situation seemed, well, unimaginable. The Canucks played a feisty, tightly-structured game that took them to the seventh game of the second round of the playoffs, which they ended up losing to the Edmonton Oilers, an eventual Stanley Cup finalist. It was a safe assumption that the team would take another step this year, and Pettersson in particular would be back to his old, prolific self. But that didn’t happen.
Pettersson hasn’t looked anything like the player who earned an eight-year, nearly $93-million contract last March, making him one of the top-paid forwards in the league. It’s often seemed like the burden of expectations that come with that sort of deal has been too much. Or maybe it’s been the problems he’s experiencing with Miller that has shaken his confidence. Doesn’t matter. He’s been a shell of his former self.
Miller hasn’t looked like the dominant player who roamed the ice last year either, one of the top two-way centres in the NHL. He missed 10 games this season when he had to step away from the team for personal reasons. Who knows if the situation with Pettersson has impacted his game as well. How could it not if it’s as bad as Rutherford makes it out to be?
But the whole team hasn’t looked the same either. This year’s version has, in recent weeks, taken down Toronto, Edmonton and Washington – three of the top teams in the league. But then other times, far too often, they have looked disorganized and disengaged. That’s the maddening part about it.
“When you don’t have chemistry, it’s hard to be that consistent team because there’s too much going on in the room for everybody to concentrate on what they’re supposed to do,” Rutherford said.
I asked Rutherford if he means the Miller-Pettersson drama has impacted the entire team.
“Yes, yup,” he said.
Rutherford and his general manager, Patrik Allvin, are uncertain if removing one of either Pettersson or Miller will fix the problem. “We don’t know,” Rutherford said. “We’ll just have to wait to find out. We’ll have to take it a step at a time. If we try and do it too fast, that’s really when you can make some mistakes.”
Of course, the Canucks’ problems are no secret. The entire world knows. This includes general managers who have been circling the team like vultures looking to make away with an outstanding meal for very little cost. Rutherford said he’d been doing the same if he were in their shoes. But he didn’t earn the reputation he has by buying high and selling low.
If the right deal doesn’t come along, it’s conceivable that both players could finish the season on the team. He said he’d rather not have to trade either player.
As much as he wants to fix the problem, he has to be smart about it. He can’t just sell Pettersson and Miller for multiple first-round picks and start over, for one simple reason – superstar defenceman and captain, Quinn Hughes.
Hughes is just 25 and entering his prime as a player. He could win multiple Norris trophies before his career is over. He does not want to be part of any rebuild in Vancouver. A retool perhaps, a rebuild definitely not.
“If we were going to completely start over that means he goes,” Rutherford told the Globe. “And we’d like to figure out a way that he’s here forever.”
What does that look like?
“We’ll have to do the best we can in trades,” Rutherford said. “Whatever assets you get in return, you may turn them into something else. And we have to work our way back into being a contending team.”
Still, any way you look at it, the Canucks are in a vulnerable – scratch that – are in a lousy, horrible, rotten, just-about-as-bad-as-it-gets position. Both Miller and Pettersson are No. 1 centres. In these times, you don’t trade a No. 1 centre and get a No. 1 centre back. “Those deals aren’t going to be there,” Rutherford acknowledges.
“So yeah, if a centre goes out of here we have to get some kind of centre back but it’s not going to be the same as the centre going out. It might not even be a No. 2 centre, but you’d have to do the best with what we have until we figure out how to fill that spot back in.
“And then, of course, you have to get extra things [in any trade] that you can either use in the future to flip for NHL players now or for other positions or things like that.”
This won’t be music to the ears of Canucks fans, but Rutherford is just being honest. It’s not like he asked for this nightmare to be foisted on him because he was bored with winning.
What the Canucks look like at the end of this season is anyone’s guess. Odds are they are going to look at lot different and likely a lot less appealing. At least for a while.
