Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the relationship between Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, and if they can’t figure it out, something has to give.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
“Thought Ron, they were great today. I thought both Hughes and Tocchet were really good talking about this particular situation. And, but I think it’s not new to people who follow the Canucks that Hughes and Pettersson have a unique relationship, to say the least.
But three things have kind of brought it again into the forefront right now. Number one, the Canucks had thought this was solved last year. The team had a great year. The two players had a great year, and they thought they had moved past this. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
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Number two, it’s bled into the way they’ve played on the ice. And that’s, can’t happen. You can’t have it affect the way the team and the players are playing.
And number three, and this is probably the most important one, it has started to take its toll on the other people in the organization, the players, the coaching staff and the hockey operations department.
Now, I think, in a perfect world, and it’s clear in just talking around the league, the, in a perfect world, that connects number one choice by far is that Pettersson and Miller remain long term players in the organization. They’re both on the Four Nations team for a reason. They’re both excellent players, and the Canucks have a better chance to win with them.
And I think that is their goal. And they’ve told them, nobody expects you to play Playstation together, as Rick Tocchet said, but they do expect you to have a professional working relationship, and they have to have that.
If, yes, they can do it, then we don’t have a single problem here. If, no, I don’t think there’s a timeline or anything like that, like they haven’t started the clock, but eventually, I think everybody realized something is going to have to
give.
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