J.T. Miller | #9 | C/W

[-AJ-]

[Dr. Crossbar]

[HKSR]

I wonder if we should keep this guy or trade him.... 

[Baratheon]

Millsy wouldn’t have shut down the old forum… just saying.

[Rindiculous]

48 minutes ago, Baratheon said:

Millsy wouldn’t have shut down the old forum… just saying.

Heart and soul guy.  Can't believe some people wanna trade him.

 

We should recreate the Miller trade rumours thread XD

[-dlc-]

 

[-dlc-]

 

[Honkin Hronek]

This thread is considerably less legendary than the other Miller thread  

[BestCanuck]

Stars align him and Brock can help push the Canucks to wild card position. 
 

I think they will. His attitude seems right this year and seems like all the BS is gone. 

[MeanSeanBean]

On 9/16/2023 at 8:55 AM, Rindiculous said:

Heart and soul guy.  Can't believe some people wanna trade him.

 

We should recreate the Miller trade rumours thread XD

I did. But to be fair, I wanted to trade both him and Horvat. But that's not what went down, so now just gotta support him. I'm glad he's not captain, but I'm also glad he's going to help lead this young team back to the top. Gotta have guys like him in the leadership group. 

[-dlc-]

On 9/18/2023 at 6:58 PM, Honkin Hronek said:

This thread is considerably less legendary than the other Miller thread  

Wait, I'll fix that....

[KesLord]

Well... let's see how his 1st season of being paid 8M goes... 

[Rip The Mesh]

Sorry Tyler, JT's first 5 seconds were epic...

[Rip The Mesh]

[-dlc-]

 

Honey Badger knows what's up.

[-AJ-]

13 minutes ago, -dlc- said:

 

Honey Badger knows what's up.

 

He's probably the most complete forward Vancouver's had since Kesler. Can defend, hit, lead, and score. Does everything.

[-dlc-]

Just a reminder...

[NucksIn50]

2 hours ago, -AJ- said:

 

He's probably the most complete forward Vancouver's had since Kesler. Can defend, hit, lead, and score. Does everything.

In JT We Trust all others pay cash!! 
 

I have a feeling this team is going to go 6-0 to start the season. JT will rack up 10 points these next 4 games. 

[Mackcanuck]

GREAT!! read here!

 

Paterson’s Point: J.T. Miller already finding ways to make a big impact away from the scoresheet

They were 52 of the most intense seconds JT Miller has played in his five seasons as a Vancouver Canucks. They were also 52 of the most impressive seconds of his tenure in blue and green.

 

https://canucksarmy.com/news/patersons-point-jt-miller-finding-ways-make-big-impact-away-scoresheet

Edited October 16, 2023 by Mackcanuck

[-dlc-]

Thanks for sharing that, Mack. Certainly was a good read and this part stands out as testament to what Miller is to this team:

 

Quote

Miller’s hit was one of his team-leading eight on the night. He also led the hockey club in shorthanded ice time. With all the talk about the Canucks overhauling their penalty kill in the off-season, Miller logged a team-high 5:52 of penalty-killing duty and was the only Canuck to take a short-handed face-off on the night. 

And no penalty-killing time was more precious than the five-on-three midway through the third period with Filip Hronek off for high-sticking and then Phil Di Giuseppe joining him in the box after inadvertently firing the puck over the glass and out of play.

Miller played a lot on Saturday – he finished the night with 22:44 of ice time. And they were hard minutes. Beyond his time on the penalty kill, he was matched up against Draisaitl for most of the first two periods with the Oilers trying to keep Connor McDavid away from Miller as much as they could after he had thrown a blanket over the best player on the planet in Wednesday’s season opener. In the third period, Miller saw plenty of both Draisaitl and McDavid, and the Oilers pulled out all the stops in an attempt to get the equalizer.

 

[Frozen Water Walker]

23 hours ago, -dlc- said:

Just a reminder...

Zee big German was ready and still your boy JT flattened him, not easy to do

 

[Cali Canuck]

 This is for Deb @-dlc-, I'm team Petey, but Miller played a hell of a game on Saturday.

 

source: https://theathletic.com/4935824/2023/10/10/canucks-jt-miller-vancouver/

 

The Vancouver Canucks dressing room was nearly empty, with most players already gone after a practice in April. The loud, upbeat music that usually radiates around the room was switched off. 

In the back of the room, J.T. Miller was chilling in his stall. He’s almost always one of the last players hanging around. Miller rose to his feet, casually strolling to the middle of the room as he took his practice jersey off. As Miller tossed the jersey into the laundry basket, he smirked and looked to his left in new linemate Phil Di Giuseppe’s direction. 

Miller fired a lighthearted chirp at Di Giuseppe about how he can’t just be a forechecker after he had been recently promoted into the team’s top six. Di Giuseppe laughed and rattled off a stat about how many shots per game he averaged in the AHL. The comeback was solid — Miller chuckled and turned back toward his stall.

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This type of scene, with a relaxed Miller throwing playful one-liners at whoever’s in his crosshairs in the dressing room, is a common sight. Brock Boeser, who sits near Miller in the back of the room, is probably his favourite target. 

It’s been that way for years, with Miller revealing on a podcast that he jokingly calls Boeser, who’s renowned as being handsome, “ugly as many times as possible.”

“He’s funny,” teammate and friend Conor Garland said with a smile. “He likes to give it to guys and one of the great things about that is he can take it when you give it back — he likes to keep the room light and he’s not sensitive, which is huge.”

Vancouver’s dressing room was typically a quiet place when Miller arrived in 2019-20. Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes were very young and reserved, while veteran leaders like Alex Edler, Chris Tanev and Bo Horvat weren’t the biggest talkers. Miller’s loud and colourful personality added a totally new character type.

Teammates gravitated toward Miller’s confident, gregarious persona. He started organizing golf outings, dinners and postgame hangouts, which brought some teammates out of their shells.

There are two versions of Miller, though. When he steps on the ice, the intense, fiery, and old-school competitor inside of him comes out. It’s one of his defining attributes.

“He fuels the team in a positive way almost every night,” former Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau told The Athletic. “For example, if we were down and things weren’t going well, he’d pick a fight just to pick a fight and hopefully the team would rise up after that or he’d go for a big hit. He’d do something out of the ordinary to get the team aroused.” 

Miller’s hard-nosed competitiveness is a primary driver for why he’s been so successful during his four years in Vancouver. But it’s also ruffled some feathers and made him one of the most polarizing Canucks players during times of turmoil, such as the 2020-21 campaign and the first half of last season.

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 “I would take the few amount of warts for being a competitive guy all day long,” Miller told The Athletic in an April interview. “I can deal with all the bull— that comes, the negative side of it or whatever. I would take a guy on my team who competes like a bastard, has some issues but f—, he competes.”

Trade rumours have circled around Miller for the last couple of seasons. But now that he’s entering the first season of a seven-year, $8 million AAV contract extension that carries a full no-movement clause, the 30-year-old forward is clearly in Vancouver for the long haul. This is a behind-the-scenes look at the double-edged sword of Miller’s intense competitiveness and personality as well as how Rick Tocchet’s arrival as head coach could unlock the best version of him.

It’s March 11, 2022, and the Canucks trail the Washington Capitals 2-0 after two periods. Vancouver’s been on a tear since Boudreau was hired to replace Travis Green and the club can’t afford to collect zero points in this game as it attempts to fight back into the playoff race. 

Boudreau doesn’t normally go into the dressing room during the intermission. But this time he planned to go in and deliver a wake-up call. Miller stopped him. He said he’d do it himself.

Miller walked in and told the team the brutal, honest truth of how they were playing and what they needed to do to get back into the game. That sparked the Canucks, who quickly scored two goals to tie the game at the start of the third period, which allowed them to pick up a point in an overtime loss.

“One of the captains said I’ll take care of this and they went in and that’s what leadership is,” Boudreau told reporters after the game. 

Miller is one of the most blunt people you’ll ever meet. He speaks his mind, without sugarcoating or beating around the bush. Many players like the honesty, energy and passion, others may not be a fan of how often he’s emotionally charged up.

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“I’m sure some of the guys hate his style, you’ve got some guys that really don’t want the uppity,” Jen Dodge, Miller’s mother, said in an interview with The Athletic last year. “I’m pretty sure in (the bubble) playoffs (everybody) saw (the video clip of) when he did the role call of the starting lineup in the locker room. 

“That’s his style, his style is energy, his style is motivation and when he’s in a room you know. That’s not always great for every player but he’s always trying to not just vocally be a leader, but show it.”

Miller’s leadership style is loud and in your face, but it was never a problem for Boudreau because it always comes from a place of deeply caring about the team’s success. 

“As a player, I remember very well when Darryl Sittler grabbed me by the throat because I wasn’t working hard enough,” said Boudreau. “He said ‘I’m the best player on this team, I’m the captain, I’m first on (the ice), last off and you’re doing OK, but you gotta work harder.’

“That reminds me an awful lot of J.T. and nobody would ever say anything negative about Darryl Sittler, he was one of the greatest leaders of all time.”

When the club’s struggling, Miller’s desperation to win can make him agitated. We’ve seen Miller swear at himself or slam sticks when he makes a mistake during games. In the heat of the moment, he has snapped at teammates during games as well. A few players had trouble with that during earlier points of Miller’s Canucks tenure, multiple sources with the team and close to the player confirmed to The Athletic. 

It didn’t rise to the level of animosity and over time, teammates have learned not to take those situations personally. Meanwhile, Miller has worked on being more considerate of who he’s speaking to and delivering his message more tactfully. 

In the big picture, Miller knows there are going to be occasional side effects that stem from his hypercompetitiveness. He still believes in it as an overwhelmingly positive force. 

“It’s all about winning,” said Miller. “It’s all about playing hard for yourself. Nothing feels better than when you string a bunch of wins together as a team and you’re leaving your balls on the line and playing hard, cussing out yourself, f— having a ‘F— you’ match with a teammate, like it happens, that’s part of hockey,” he passionately insisted. 

“The game is a very sensitive place these days and turning into more of a self-aware, ego style of game. Everybody is a good player nowadays, everybody’s skilled, you see the s— guys are trying on the ice — the game is a very ‘Look at me’ game. For me, it’s a lost art to quote-unquote give a f—. And sometimes you show it differently.”

Miller’s on-ice frustration and body language became a hot-button topic after the Canucks’ disastrous start to the 2022-23 season. As the team and Miller’s individual play wavered, his performance and attitude were a lightning rod for criticism. The discussion became a national talking point when Miller’s stick smash on Collin Delia’s goalpost during a late December game against Winnipeg went viral. 

Turnovers, lackadaisical backchecks and acting out on the ice were dissected all over social media, including on a “Hockey Night in Canada” segment. Fans and media were starting to turn on him. 

Miller turned the narrative of his season with a dramatic second-half bounce back. He was more focused and disciplined, and his on-ice play was exceptional, as he piled up huge point totals on top of stabilizing his two-way game at centre.

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Why such a stark change in play and behaviour? People close to Miller and within the organization believe that the Canucks’ coaching change was instrumental in taking weight off his shoulders and allowing him to stay in his own lane. 

Miller and Boudreau had a relationship with mutual respect, but it’s no secret that Boudreau is a laid-back, laissez-faire coach. It’s been a successful approach over Boudreau’s illustrious coaching career and can be highly effective for a veteran team that’s full of self-starters. 

But after Vancouver’s poor start to the season, Miller sensed there was a void to fill in holding the team accountable. He became more vocal and intense and with his attention pointed elsewhere, the positive habits of his game started to erode.

“It’s easy for a coach or anybody to say, ‘Hey listen, you just worry about your own game and the rest will take care of itself,’ but when you are a leader, when you are a guy that takes a lot of the heat internally when things aren’t going right, you want everything to go right, so you end doing more than what you should,” said Boudreau. “But it only comes because you want to win and a lot of times you go out of your lane and you’re trying to help everybody and do everybody else’s job, you forget about your job a little bit and again, that’s because you care.”

Tocchet replaced Boudreau in late January and has the hard-nosed personality that can command a dressing room. With a more authoritative head coach, Miller stepped back and focused on his own game. 

Miller referred to some of those themes during his end-of-season availability. 

“Rick has been awesome in working with me on a personal level,” said Miller. “He keeps me very accountable, which is what I asked for (from) day one. Some days I don’t want to hear it but I know when I go home, I sit down, have a beer, it’s like ‘OK, he’s right,’ we’ve got to be honest with ourselves. 

“But I need a guy like that. It helps me stay in my lane, it helps me worry about myself, and I think inevitably when I’m doing that is when I’m playing my best hockey.”

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Miller is an amplifier of the team’s emotional state. When the club’s winning, his swagger, lively energy and off-ice lightheartedness propels everybody’s spirits higher. But when the club’s losing, Miller’s charged up and on edge, which can create friction, even though it comes from a good place.

Tocchet’s arrival inspires hope that he can hold Miller to a higher standard and challenge him to channel his competitiveness the right way. If you can couple that with a winning product, it’d go a long way toward making sure that the Canucks extract the best version of Miller on and off the ice. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Cali Canuck
more info

[Wilbur]

JT Miller's 2 pt effort tonight slides him into 28th in all-time Canuck scoring

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Wilbur

[-dlc-]

On 10/16/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cali Canuck said:

a relaxed Miller throwing playful one-liners at whoever’s in his crosshairs in the dressing room

 

On 10/16/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cali Canuck said:

he likes to keep the room light and he’s not sensitive, which is huge.

 

On 10/16/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cali Canuck said:

He likes to give it to guys and one of the great things about that is he can take it when you give it back

 

I've said before (and it was heavily disputed) that JT reminds me a lot of Bieksa. His personality and how he does use ribbing, etc. to keep things light and everyone connected. I mean, even in tough times if someone can make you laugh it can really help cut the tension. Also, how he wants to be held accountable and work on his game. 

 

On 10/16/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cali Canuck said:

Vancouver’s dressing room was typically a quiet place when Miller

On 10/16/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cali Canuck said:

He started organizing golf outings, dinners and postgame hangouts, which brought some teammates out of their shells.

As much as we've had some great captains/leaders, an in your face kind of guy can be effective when everyone is silent and in their own heads. 

This kind of stuff screams leadership (all of it). I still feel that he should wear the C but I don't begrudge Quinn wearing it either. 

 

 

 

What a great read, @Cali Canuck, thank you! Not sure how I'd missed this earlier. Really enjoy the stuff that gives us insight into what makes the players tick. Especially my very favourite player!

[Boudrias]

22 hours ago, -dlc- said:

 

 

 

I've said before (and it was heavily disputed) that JT reminds me a lot of Bieksa. His personality and how he does use ribbing, etc. to keep things light and everyone connected. I mean, even in tough times if someone can make you laugh it can really help cut the tension. Also, how he wants to be held accountable and work on his game. 

 

As much as we've had some great captains/leaders, an in your face kind of guy can be effective when everyone is silent and in their own heads. 

This kind of stuff screams leadership (all of it). I still feel that he should wear the C but I don't begrudge Quinn wearing it either. 

 

 

 

What a great read, @Cali Canuck, thank you! Not sure how I'd missed this earlier. Really enjoy the stuff that gives us insight into what makes the players tick. Especially my very favourite player!

I will admit that JT is growing on me Deb. You were his stanches defender when many like me wanted him traded before his NTC kicked in. As more of his personality is revealed the concerns are ebbing away. JT appears to like RT's coaching which is a plus.