J.T. Miller wasn’t a conventional player for the Vancouver Canucks, he was a star.
Fans chanted his name at Rogers Arena. He stood up for the health of his teammates during the club’s COVID-19 outbreak. He was often described as the team’s emotional leader on and off the ice. He was the most discussed and scrutinized player the market has seen since Roberto Luongo’s heyday.
Acquired as a second-line winger from Tampa Bay in 2019, Miller eventually converted to center during his Canucks tenure and broke out with more opportunity. He genuinely leveled up his two-way game. And in Miller’s finest hour last season, he managed 100 points for a surprise Pacific Division-winning side. Then he topped that off by carrying the club on his back to a playoff series win against the Nashville Predators before checking Connor McDavid as effectively as anybody managed in the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, save for Aleksander Barkov.
On Friday, the Canucks turned the page on one of the most productive stints any forward has ever managed in franchise history.
They did so for unconventional reasons. This trade occurred as a direct result of locker room discord and a fractured relationship between Miller and Elias Pettersson.
Despite Miller’s circuitous path to stardom in Vancouver and the murky circumstances underlying his departure, however, the trade that sent him to the New York Rangers was as conventional as it gets in the NHL. Miller was dealt, effectively, for the classic trade formulation of a player, a prospect and a pick.
In acquiring Miller from Vancouver, the Rangers exchanged a talented middle-six center with a lengthy and well-documented concussion history in Filip Chytil, an interesting AHL right-handed defender in Victor Mancini and a protected 2025 first-round pick. Vancouver retained no money in the transaction, and the protections on the pick are relatively favorable for the Canucks — the pick will convert to an unprotected 2026 first-rounder in the event that it falls inside the top 13 in the 2025 NHL Draft.
GO DEEPER
NHL trade grades: Canucks finally send J.T. Miller to Rangers in big swing for both teams
On first blush, perhaps, one would say that this is a clear win for the Rangers, who rather obviously acquired the best player in the trade.
Given the circumstances that the Canucks were dealing with and how publicly this season had spiraled out of control, you might fairly conclude that the club managed to do decently well given the complexity of the situation and that Miller had meaningful control over his destination due to his no-move clause.
However, with no additional context added, this is an exceptional hockey trade for the Canucks. A deal that will move the club closer to contention, albeit indirectly.
It’s a trade that makes the club younger. Chytil comes with a lot of risk given his history of head injuries, but he’s a capable short-term solution down the middle of Vancouver’s forward ranks, with upside in an expanded role provided that he’s able to stay healthy — which is admittedly a significant “if.”
It’s a trade that makes Vancouver more flexible. The second best part of this trade is that the club didn’t retain a cent of Miller’s contract in the transaction, shedding the entirety of his contract. It won’t be straightforward to use the salary and term that the club shed more efficiently than on a player of Miller’s caliber, of course, but Canucks hockey operations have built up a pretty solid professional scouting track record across the past few years. Now they’ll have even more cap space to mine value on the trade market and free agency.
It’s a trade that returns a genuinely interesting young fringe NHL player at a position of significant need. Mancini has taken a very unique path to the professional ranks but is a favorite among a number of professional scouts that The Athletic polled in the wake of Friday deal. He’s a big-bodied right-handed defender with a more transition-oriented profile than his play style and production would suggest, which makes him an intriguing piece for a Vancouver team that needs some speed, snarl and depth on the right side of its blue line.
Mancini’s pedestrian scoring profile isn’t especially auspicious. He may top out as organizational depth. He’s a player, however, with some rare traits who has continually found ways to beat the odds to get to this point.
What really elevates this trade from a deal in which Vancouver made the best out of a bad situation, however, and makes it into a deal that’s an outright win for the hockey club, is the first-round pick and the protection structure on it.
Entering Friday’s games, the Rangers were five points back of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with The Athletic’s playoff probabilities model giving them about a 36 percent chance of qualifying for the playoffs. There’s a very real chance that the first-round pick that Vancouver just acquired will convert to a far stronger 2026 NHL Draft.
This pick is a very serious asset. A capital-V Value for the Canucks, even if the pick is surely already burning a hole in Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin’s pockets.
The Rangers have arguably underperformed this season, but the fact remains, that aside from Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin, the vast majority of the Rangers’ best players — which, now, includes Miller himself — are on the other side of 30. There are also a ton of teams in the Eastern Conference — Columbus, Ottawa and Montreal among them — who appear to be on a durable upswing given the volume of young talent littered across those rosters.
The Canucks may have surrendered the best current player in Friday’s blockbuster, but they netted the highest upside asset and two other players capable of playing a role for the club down the stretch this season and beyond.
This is a trade for Vancouver that might not be a conventional win, but it’s an unqualified one.
(Photo: Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
