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I Watched This Game: Miller trash-talks Pettersson, keeping old Canucks feud alive

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Nov 14 2026, 6:53 am
I Watched This Game: Miller trash-talks Pettersson, keeping old Canucks feud alive
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

The Vancouver Canucks did not look like themselves early in Friday’s game against the New York Rangers.

Part of that was because the Canucks were wearing their divisive Hometown Remix jerseys, which feature two shades of blue bearing no resemblance to any past Canucks colours.

But part of it was that the Canucks played one of their best periods of the season, looking like a brand new team.

Then some old drama resurfaced, and it seemed to change the tenor of the game.

Once again, it was J.T. Miller vs. Elias Pettersson. Except, this time it seemed to be Miller vs. the entire Canucks fanbase as well.

Fans at Rogers Arena booed Miller every time he touched the puck, particularly in the first period, when the Canucks were actually outplaying the Rangers.

Then Elias Pettersson opened the scoring to put his team on the front foot, and Rogers Arena was roaring the way it so rarely has this season.

The Rangers, however, pushed back late in the frame and got the game-tying goal. It came right after a battle between Miller and Pettersson.

The Canucks’ star pinned Miller to the boards deep in the Canucks’ zone, but Miller managed to poke the puck free to Alexis Lafreniere behind the net. The Canucks were still in good shape, but Zeev Buium and Filip Hronek got their wires crossed on coverage, leaving Gabe Perreault open to put the puck top corner on the short side.

Perhaps because he was fired up from the booing or because of the battle in the corner, Miller was feeling all of his oats. He decided it was time for one of his go-to moves at Rogers Arena: yelling at Elias Pettersson.

Miller was so eager to shout at Pettersson, in fact, that he pushed his own teammates out of the way to do it.

Because what’s more important in that moment: celebrating a big goal with your teammates or shoving it in the face of a former teammate?

Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan credited Miller’s battle win with turning the tide of the game.

“That’s a perfect example, right? He wins a puck battle,” said Sullivan. “It’s a one-against-two, actually, and he wins the puck, gives it to Laff behind the net, Laff makes a nice play to Gabe, and it’s a hell of a goal.

“For us to get out of the first period one-one, that was a big goal for us. It gave us an opportunity to gather ourselves and go out in the second period and try to build on it.”

The Rangers built a crushing defeat of the Canucks as I watched this game.

offside i watched this game

Brock Boeser hits major milestone

  • At least there was one positive story to come out of this game: Brock Boeser tallied his 500th career point on the Canucks’ first and only goal of the game. He is currently eighth all-time in scoring in franchise history behind the player whose goal he assisted on: Elias Pettersson.
  • It was tough for Boeser to be positive about the accomplishment, unfortunately, in a 5-1 loss, especially since it was the Canucks’ 17th loss in their last 18 games.
  • “Definitely a cool achievement,” said Boeser. “But it doesn’t stop there: gotta keep going, got to continue to be a leader.”
  • It was a great play by Boeser, as he neatly knocked down a puck along the boards to prevent a Rangers clear. He then swung the puck back to Zeev Buium at the point, who sent a shot towards the net at perfect tipping height, and Pettersson made like Drew Barrymore and tipped well.

  • “Of course, [it still means something], it’s a milestone,” said Pettersson. “Happy for him to reach 500 points. I mean, it’s hard to see the positive when it’s the same story, many losses.”
  • Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra was positive about the milestone and didn’t disagree that it was a great play by Boeser, but he felt it shouldn’t be seen as exceptional.
  • “The things that we discuss being valued within our team are just those types of things: winning board battles to set up the next play,” said Malhotra. “Those are the things that we’re looking for throughout our lineup. So yeah, it’s great that he was rewarded on it, but those, to me, just need to be a staple of our game.”
  • That was Pettersson’s first 5-on-5 goal since Jan. 13th against the Ottawa Senators. He went 56 games without a 5-on-5 goal, which is staggering to think about given how his career began. Hopefully, that’s a monkey thoroughly off his back — perhaps even a gorilla.

  • “I mean, it’s my first one this year, so it’s been many months since my last one,” said Pettersson, who didn’t seem aware that it had been that long since his last 5-on-5 goal.

Meriläinen keeps the lead until he doesn’t

  • Leevi Meriläinen was very good in the first period before things fell apart in the second, which wasn’t entirely his fault — only partially. He came up with a stunning save on Noah Laba that, in a more just world, would have been a game-changing save that we could point back to as a key moment, instead of being largely inconsequential.

  • Unfortunately, Meriläinen then got caught looking the wrong way on Lafreniere’s pass from behind the net on the tying goal. Perreault’s shot was pretty much perfect, but Meriläinen could have made the save if he didn’t at first cheat towards the opposite post.
  • Of course, the real fault on the 1-1 goal belonged to Filip Hronek. When the puck came free to Lafreniere behind the net, Hronek needed to trust that Buium would get back to cut off Lafreniere’s path to the front of the net and focus on closing the gap on Perreault. Instead, he took a step towards Lafreniere, leaving Perreault more open than a Spirit Halloween in October.

  • Even though the game was tied, the Canucks seemed to be in good shape after the first period. The defence pairing of Elias Pettersson and Tom Willander was particularly thriving, with the Canucks outshooting the Rangers 7-to-1 when they were on the ice at 5-on-5.

Disastrous second period

  • Things started to go wrong when Drew O’Connor missed the net on a shorthanded rush on a pass from Pettersson. I’m not saying the loss is entirely O’Connor’s fault, but I’m not not saying that.
  • The Rangers scored on the power play after O’Connor’s miss. It was actually a fascinating bit of misdirection by the Rangers’ power play. Multiple times, they set up as if they were looking for a cross-crease, backdoor pass, causing the Canucks to collapse back to the net, then instead set up a shot from the left faceoff circle using the passing seam opened up by the collapsing penalty kill.

  • Yeah, they scouted the Canucks’ penalty kill. They scouted it to filth.
  • Was there also an uncalled crosscheck on Max Sasson just before the goal? Maybe. Perhaps. Perchance. Mayhaps.
  • Every single mistake from then on seemed to immediately turn into a goal against, which had to be absolutely crushing for the confidence of the Canucks’ players. The margin for error was non-existent.
  • “A lot of what we’re dealing with now is being in games and having one or two of these bad mistakes,” said Malhotra. “It’s generally a three or four-minute stretch that a lot of these bad things happen. That is, to me, a sign of a young team that needs to learn to just play through those things.”
  • Meriläinen came out to play a puck and threw a pass into Filip Chytil’s skates for a turnover. The puck deflected to Richmond’s own Glenn Gawdin, and the 29-year-old forward scored his first career NHL goal before Meriläinen could find his angle again.
  • Then, Gallagher waited too long to pass the puck on a Canucks’ rush, got caught from behind, and the Rangers sprung a 3-on-2 the other way. Lafreniere got in behind the younger Pettersson and outwaited Meriläinen with a move to the backhand to make it 4-1.

  • It’s worth noting that Gallagher very much does not fit Manny’s description of a “young team.”
  • Then the newest Canuck, Cameron Crotty, got caught along the boards in the neutral zone for a turnover. The Rangers pushed the other way and Gawdin tipped in his second career goal. Good for Gawdin; less good for the Canucks.

  • “It’s being comfortable with the nothingness of a game,” said Malhotra, likely meaning that the Canucks need to be okay with shifts where nothing happens in a shift — good or bad — instead of trying to force something that isn’t there. “When you look at really good teams in this league, they don’t shoot themselves in the foot, and they stay with their process. They stay with their game plan. Eventually, somebody cracks, and too many times we’re the team that goes off script and cracks in those moments. So, it’s a learning lesson of being comfortable in the nothingness of just being simple.”
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