By Pierre LeBrun, Chris Johnston, Arthur Staple, Thomas Drance and Peter Baugh
The Vancouver Canucks and New York Rangers agreed to a trade for J.T. Miller, according to a league source. A trade call has not happened yet, the source said.
Along with Miller, the Canucks are sending Erik Brännström and Jackson Dorrington to the Rangers for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini and a top-13 protected 2025 first-round pick, a league source said.
The Canucks asked Miller to waive his no-trade clause to clear the way for Vancouver to trade the forward to the Rangers, a league source said Friday, and Miller did.
The Rangers drafted Miller with the No. 15 pick in the 2011 NHL Draft. He played parts of four seasons with the Rangers and two with the Tampa Bay Lightning before a six-season stint in Vancouver.
Miller has 35 points in 40 games with the Canucks this season.
What the Rangers get in Miller
When at his best, Miller is a top-line center capable of putting up 100 points in a season. He showed that as recently as last season when he put up 103 points in 81 games for a Vancouver team that came as close as anyone in the West to beat the Edmonton Oilers.
The Rangers have been looking to make big changes to their roster since the start of the season, when they sent out a memo to other teams saying they’d be open to moving roster players, including captain Jacob Trouba and longest-tenured player Chris Kreider. The Rangers ended up trading away Trouba and forward Kaapo Kakko in December, but this is their most drastic addition of the season. Miller will fit immediately into a top-six forward group that has struggled to produce at the same rate it did in 2023-24.
There’s risk in the Miller addition, too, namely in his contract. He is 31 and on an $8 million average annual value deal through 2029-30. Friday’s news of increases in the salary cap ceiling in coming years makes that more palatable, even if he regresses with age. — Peter Baugh, Rangers beat writer
Canucks turn the page on the Miller era
The skilled first-line center has been very publicly on the trade block over the past month and was nearly dealt to the Rangers and the Carolina Hurricanes on back-to-back weekends. At long last, on Friday afternoon, the iconic Canucks forward waived his no-move clause and moved to the Rangers, who this time around, didn’t arbitrarily kill the deal at the last moment.
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Given that the club really had to move Miller, with Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford admitting that this core had become untenable given the fractured relationship between Miller and fellow star center Elias Pettersson, this package is about as good as the club could’ve expected to do. They clearly traded the best player involved, but shed a significant cap liability and got back a credible middle-six center option in Chytil, a player the club has been very high on, despite the injury question marks. Vancouver also gets an interesting right-handed defender in Mancini and a protected first-round pick — an asset that will likely burn a hole in the club’s pocket between now and the March 7 trade deadline.
Miller will leave Vancouver having produced a point per game during his Canucks tenure — one of only two forwards to do so in franchise history, in addition to Hall of Fame sniper Pavel Bure. It’s a shame that it came to this for a club that intended on contending this season, but it’s a trade that quietly opens up some other avenues for the club to rejig this roster and attempt to move forward. — Thomas Drance, Canucks beat writer
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What the Rangers sacrificed for Miller
Chytil is the main return in this deal. He broke out in 2022-23 with 45 points in 74 games, but he has dealt with multiple head injuries, including a concussion that kept him out of almost the entire 2023-24 season. He’s battled injuries again this year, though he saw a specialist to determine they were not concussions. Chytil has shown flashes of brilliance this season but has struggled with consistency, in part because he missed two stretches with injuries. If healthy, he’s a quality middle-six center.
Mancini was a pleasant surprise for the Rangers, making the team out of training camp. He’s since gone down to Hartford. The Rangers view him as someone who could eventually be a reliable third-pair defenseman, but the Rangers have depth on the right side with Adam Fox, Braden Schneider and Will Borgen. They also have defensive prospects Drew Fortescue and EJ Emery in the pipeline.
The first-round pick is valuable, but if it is in the teens or 20s, the Rangers won’t be getting a player that would be able to help them earlier than three or four years down the road. — Baugh
Required reading
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
