As much as the Vancouver Canucks have been a mess on the ice, that’s nothing compared to how messy they’ve been off the ice.
The two feed into each other, of course. If the Canucks were performing better on the ice, so much of what’s happened off the ice could be swept under the rug and ignored. And if things were more copacetic off the ice, then the Canucks would probably have an easier time finding their rhythm on the ice.
It’s an ugly feedback loop and the feedback has grown to ear-piercing levels. The biggest culprit is the Canucks’ disasterclass in communication.
A university could offer a Communications class entirely centred around how the 2024-25 Canucks and how they’ve offered up a perfect illustration of what not to do at every turn.
The latest example comes directly from president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford.
"There's not a good solution that would keep this group together"
For the first time in nearly two months, the Canucks finally strung together two wins in a row. There was a positive feeling in the fanbase for once, allowing fans to look past the ongoing rumours of a rift between star forwards J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson, as well as the trade rumours involving both players.
That’s when Rutherford gave a to Gary Mason at The Globe and Mail that not only put the spotlight directly onto the rumoured rift but removed the “rumoured” tag from it entirely.
"I felt like for a long time that there was a solution here because everybody has worked on it, including the parties involved," said Rutherford to Mason. "But it only gets resolved for a short period of time and then it festers again and so it certainly appears like there’s not a good solution that would keep this group together.”
Rutherford said that the two have “tried” to put their differences aside but “sometimes you can’t get over it.”
"We’re talking about two of our top players, certainly our two best forwards,” said Rutherford to Mason. “It can really be tough on a franchise — not only present but into the future — when you’re planning on peaking this team into a contending team and then you find out that’s not going to happen. Or at least it’s not going to happen with the group we have now. Then you have to put together a new plan."
It should be noted that a quote Mason left out of the article but later shared on Twitter downplayed things a little bit, as Rutherford suggested that winning might soothe the issues between the two players and said, “We don’t want to trade these players but we may very well be forced to.”
In any case, what was once merely rumour has now been confirmed: Miller and Pettersson have irreconcilable differences. It’s worth asking why Rutherford would say this now and recentre a story that might have been able to fade away.
"Everyone knows what the reports are out there"
Of course, the Canucks have botched the communication on this story all season long.
When the rumours of a rift between Miller and Pettersson first surfaced, they were left to fester far too long, to the point it became a major story. The Canucks didn’t address the reports when they came out in the national media and it left fans speculating about a minor clash between the two players at a practice and Miller’s leave of absence.
Those rumours were only exacerbated by head coach Rick Tocchet . Even if that move was unrelated to any rift, the Canucks’ refusal to comment on the rumours left it open to speculation.
Compare that to how the Boston Bruins handled rumours of a rift between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. Both Marchand and Pastrnak were in front of cameras with the media the very next day, , which killed the story outright before it could grow any legs.
When the Canucks finally did address the rumoured rift, they did so in a brutally slipshod manner, resulting in mixed messages.
Quinn Hughes and Tocchet both on December 21 before a game against the Ottawa Senators, though they downplayed their severity.
"Not to beat around the bush: everyone knows what the reports are out there. Everyone expects a lot from each other," said Hughes. "There's times I get upset with Millsy, there's times I get upset with Petey, there's times I get upset with Hronek — that doesn't mean that I don't love those guys and vice versa.”
“You're going to have arguments; you're going to have fights,” said Tocchet. “Whether people are bickering and complaining, it happens all the time. It's my job to make sure that guys have a voice and you move on from that sort of stuff. But you've also got to be mature too. You don't have to play Playstation together, you don't have to go to dinner together, but if it's your turn to go to the net, go to the net. That's really what it comes down to."
The message seemed clear: sure, there have been some issues between Miller and Pettersson, but that’s normal and can be dealt with in a mature way. If that was the intended message, however, someone forgot to tell Pettersson and Miller. Instead of acknowledging the issues like Hughes and Tocchet, the two forwards accused the media of making the whole thing up.
"I don't know why people still try and make **** up, excuse my language," said Pettersson after the game, the same day that Hughes and Tocchet had all but confirmed that no one was making anything up.
“You guys, in the sense of that outer world, have created this thing,” said Miller the next morning. “Like, this isn't a thing. Am I bothered? No. But you guys are just wasting your time.”
You can either acknowledge the issues or deny they exist; you can’t do both. But it’s not really the fault of Miller and Pettesson, nor is it the fault of Hughes or Tocchet. The Canucks as a whole needed to get together to figure out what the communication strategy around this issue was going to be and get everyone on the same page. At that, they utterly failed.
The Canucks' leadership has done a disservice to their players
Ironically, it was Miller himself who had the best idea.
“I can bring out Petey and we can do the interview together if that would make you guys happy,” said Miller.
Honestly, that’s exactly what the Canucks should have done. If they weren’t going to work with the local media to deal with this story, they could at least have done so with their internal media team.
The Canucks employ multiple reporters that could have done a story or video to kill the rumours of a rift, whether by addressing it directly or by indirectly countering the rumours by showing the two forwards together on or off the ice. If the Canucks weren’t so deadset on trying to tightly control the narrative, there would be so many opportunities to create more interesting content for fans.
Imagine a video where Miller and Pettersson find common ground by first acknowledging things that they disagree on: inconsequential things like steak or sushi, science fiction or fantasy, pop or country. Imagine an article about Miller’s leadership with quotes from Pettersson or Pettersson’s work ethic with quotes from Miller. The opportunity has been there for the Canucks to provide a counter-narrative; they haven’t done it.
Instead, the Canucks' approach to creating content is as corporate as it gets.
Then, just when things had died down after Christmas, general manager Patrik Allvin made things worse with in an interview with MacIntyre where he .
While not specifically about the rift, it created more off-ice drama for a team that was already steeped in it. Now, Allvin’s mentor has done the same thing, adding to the drama instead of tamping it down.
Then, in the wake of rumours and reports that the Canucks , Allvin had the temerity to say, "I feel bad for a lot of players when you’re reading some rumours out there." His own comments have been the source of many of those rumours.
At every step, the Canucks have done a disservice to their players with their poor or non-existent communications strategy. What’s frustrating is that the Canucks have good people on their communications staff, who are doing the best they can with the resources they’ve been given. The saying that the fish rots from the head feels pertinent.
This all feels like a massive failure in leadership. Not the leadership in the room, where Miller and Pettersson both wear “A”s as alternate captains, but the leadership from the top of the organization: Allvin, Rutherford, and, above them, Francesco Aquilini.
That’s because all of this feels very familiar.
Rutherford's handling of this rift echoes the firing of Bruce Boudreau
The Canucks under Allvin and Rutherford thoroughly mishandled the firing of head coach Bruce Boudreau two years ago. Rutherford while taking no responsibility for his part in the team’s struggles. He then publicly said that he’d been talking to potential coaching replacements for months, a week ahead of actually firing Boudreau.
He and Allvin let the rumours in the media of Boudreau’s firing percolate to the point that literally everyone in the NHL knew exactly when Boudreau would be fired, allowing it to become a national news story when .
Kelly Hrudey called it “cruel” and a “huge black eye for the organization.”
This feels like a reprise of the situation, just with two of the team’s star players in the crosshairs instead of the head coach.
Why has this rift gotten to this point? Where has the leadership in the organization been this entire time? Why has the communication from the Canucks been so slipshod?
There is one possible explanation for why Rutherford went public with this situation, particularly with Mason. His message was meant for one person’s ears: Aquilini.
Mason has been jokingly called “the Aquilini Whisperer,” as he communicates regularly with the Aquilini family. Is it possible that Aquilini has been stepping in to prevent the Canucks from dealing with this situation with a trade?
Paul Bissonnette claimed recently that he had dinner at one of Aquilini’s restaurants and ran into Aquilini himself, who he claims asked for his opinion on the matter. Bissonnette claims that .
“Regardless of how bad things are with J.T. Miller right now and the drama surrounding it, you don’t give away this asset for nothing,” said Bissonnette. “Given maybe the fact he’s a little bit banged up, I don’t think he’s playing his best hockey right now, maybe a little bit of frustration with the distraction of all the media stuff.
“Don’t trade him for a first-rounder and [Filip] Chytil. That’s not the move. Because even if you don’t make playoffs this year and he’s not very good, and things fizzle out to the point where maybe he’s not even with the team anymore — I don’t think it’ll get there. How desperate are 10-15 teams in the league going to be this summer at trying to get a first two-line centre?”
Whether or not trading Miller is the right move, Aquilini probably shouldn’t be asking someone who goes by the name “Biznasty” for his opinion on the matter. And if Aquilini is soliciting outside opinions, is he then expressing those opinions to Allvin and Rutherford?
This is just speculation but perhaps Rutherford’s bombshell comments that “there’s not a good solution that would keep this group together” are intended as a shot across Aquilini’s bow, making it clear that something has to change.
Of course, all of this distracts from the biggest problem with the Canucks: a poorly-constructed defence corps that can’t move the puck. Maybe if Miller and Pettersson didn’t have to share Hughes but had another defenceman or two who could transition the puck up ice, there wouldn’t be so many problems on the ice, leading to fewer problems off of it.
Perhaps that’s the real point of the Canucks’ terrible communication strategy.
