Canucks Coffee: Elias Pettersson gets petulant and J.T. Miller goes ...

23 hours ago

The Province

Elias Pettersson's denials of reality are bizarre and speak to big problems inside the Canucks' dressing room.

Elias Pettersson - Figure 1 — Photo The Province

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Published Dec 22, 2024 • 3 minute read

Elias Pettersson is pointless in six games. Photo by Derek Cain /Getty Images

Patrik Allvin said all of the team’s stars had to be better.

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Well, Saturday night, Quinn Hughes scored again. So was Brock Boeser.

That’s a start.

But Elias Pettersson is pointless in six games. J.T. Miller has three assists in that time, all after he returned from an indefinite leave of absence. He had zero shot attempts and one hit last night. At least Pettersson is shooting the puck, even if they are muffins. There are moments when it does look like he’s trying.

In the end, though, the Vancouver Canucks are paying these two almost $20 million combined to play a game in front of thousands of fans paying a mint to be there. They’re getting crap and they deserve better.

This isn’t about rooting for players to fail on our part: This is about representing those fans who are watching these immensely well-paid, marvellously talented young people perform.

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Regular people are scraping through the day to day right now. The economy is teetering along. Everything is expensive. They deserve value for the hard-earned dollars they’re paying to this organization.

These players owe it to the fans to perform. If they don’t want to be asked awkward questions, then do better and the questions won’t be asked.

In storming out post-game last night, Pettersson showed more anger and passion than he’s shown in weeks.

Elias Pettersson - Figure 3 — Photo The Province

It’s all just so baffling he took the post-game approach he did: his captain and his coach had openly acknowledged there have been difficulties, and then Pettersson tries to deny the difficulties even exist?

Management has been saying publicly and behind the scenes that this situation is solvable, leaning on the professionalism of both players involved. There was very little of that on display Saturday night.

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Speaking of which …

Where was Miller? At least Pettersson stuck around to speak with us, as miserable an experience it apparently was for him.

Miller has been in hiding. It’s a real shame because he has been such a good talker, generally speaking fairly and honestly about his team. He may be a hot head with his teammates, but he’s always faced the music.

In many ways, that he doesn’t want to now speaks volumes about how he’s feeling about the team and the media.

What was he thinking?

Did Pettersson really not know about what had been said earlier? If not, how is that possible? If so, why isn’t he listening to advice?

Hard to imagine the way he presented himself, as annoyed as he may be, will land well with management.

There was some professionalism

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Credit to Hughes and Boeser, who spoke smartly and eloquently about the state of their team.

Where does this go?

Asked this question the other day, but it’s hard to see this carrying on at this point.

If one or both of these players has said to management “me or him,” it would not be a surprise.

Yes, they’ve talked

Allvin acknowledged to me on Friday he’s ready to make a trade if he has to. He doesn’t hang up the phone on anyone.

Teams are calling. You can bet Buffalo is one.

But trading Pettersson is a tricky thing to do. He’s on a big contract, there are real questions about how he’s handling himself, and there are internal questions about how he prepares himself for the season. Can he be the player that matches the contract? And what teams can even afford to take him on? The list isn’t long.

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Miller might be more tradable, though he obviously won’t be the player he’s been for much further into the future. That’s a simple truth about age.

Our role

You, the fans, rarely see these guys. You want to know what’s going on. It’s our job to try to figure this out as fairly and accurately as possible. Sometimes that means asking uncomfortable questions.

Tocchet was right to ask why we didn’t speak with them earlier in the day. He’s been on our side, he actually has an astute understanding of how media works and what the role is. It’s why, generally, he answers our questions in depth, especially when the questions are reflective of what everyone is seeing.

He’ll get annoyed from time to time and often he’ll explain why.

Our role is to represent the fans, their interests.

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