Vancouver Canucks star J.T. Miller is a competitive guy.
That much has become obvious during his time on the West Coast. It’s part of what makes him so great, but it can also rub some people the wrong way, as it clearly has with Elias Pettersson, his feuding co-star.
Few people have received a more intimate look at Miller’s personality and his dynamic within the Canucks dressing room than Bruce Boudreau. The team’s former head coach was in charge for parts of two seasons.
“Me and JT had some talks about him being the sword a little too often,” explained Boudreau on Jeff Marek’s The Sheet podcast. “He understood, and a lot of times he would watch the video or look at the time sheets on how much ice-time he played and say ‘oh yeah, sorry man.’”
“Sometimes we forget, like he’s very hot tempered but at the same time, every party was organized by him, everything that was going on at the house was going on at his house. His kids were always first and foremost, all of those things.”
“But when he gets into a game, there’s not too many people I’ve ever seen that want the right outcome more than him. Sometimes, when that’s not going as well as it should, it gets bottled up, and then all of a sudden, the explosion comes.”
Some of those explosions have been very public over the years. When the team is losing, it’s clear that Miller takes it hard and sometimes it can come out in the wrong way.
Miller got in an on-ice argument with veteran Luke Schenn at the start of the 2022-23 season. He also had a visible outburst toward goalie Colin Delia when the netminder was slow going to the bench.
That competitive fire is also what makes Miller one of the best two-way centres in the league. When on his game, there are few players like him. He had 103 points last year and can shut down the top players around the league.
It seems like Miller’s time with the Canucks is coming to an end, as his feud with Pettersson has become a massive public distraction. Tons of NHL teams will surely be interested in Miller, and the only question is at what cost.