It's a reunion with an old frenemy.
On Saturday afternoon in New York — 10 a.m. PST — the Vancouver Canucks will face former teammate J.T. Miller for the first time as they take on the New York Rangers.
At least, it will be the first time for most of the Canucks. Elias Pettersson already faced Miller in the 4 Nations Face-Off, but that was a very different situation.
A major plot point in the story of the 2024-25 Canucks is Miller's departure, which followed reports of dysfunction in the locker room centred around Miller and Pettersson. These weren't even just rumours and innuendo; Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford flat-out confirmed the rift between the two stars.
A couple of days later, Miller was gone, traded to the Rangers for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, and a first-round pick. It was a bizarre end to Miller's time in Vancouver, where he earned adoration from the Canucks fanbase and put up the second-best points-per-game in franchise history behind only Pavel Bure.
"The whole me-and-Petey thing, it's still blown out of proportion," said Miller to Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre ahead of Saturday's tilt. "I get what Jim was doing. I have a ton of respect for Jim, and I talked with Jim after that [story]. I wasn't mad; I understand everybody has a job to do. Clearly, if me and Petey were better than we were, obviously this might be different. But it's also not as bad as everybody thought, either. It's just an easy thing for everybody to run with. There was just a lot of moving parts."
Miller admitted to MacIntyre that the type of person he is made it harder to deal with everything that happened this season.
"If there was a more casual, laid-back, happy-go-lucky guy going through it, it might have been fine," said Miller. "But I ain't it."
According to Rangers reporter Vince Mercogliano, there are no hard feelings between Miller and his former teammates.
"Some of my best friends are on that team," said Miller. "We’re going to dinner tonight, but once tomorrow comes, it's going to be a war, and I think we all understand that. We would rather it be that way anyway. It's all business when we get out there."
It better be. Both the Canucks and the Rangers head into the game outside of the playoff picture in their respective conferences. The Rangers are two points back of the Montreal Canadiens for the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference and have played two more games than Les Habitants.
Meanwhile, the Canucks find themselves one point back of the St. Louis Blues after their overtime loss on Thursday but have a game in hand. A win over the Rangers would vault them back over the Blues into that second Wild Card spot in the West.
Vancouver Canucks projected lines
Victor Mancini has been a healthy scratch the last two games but it seems likely he'll get into the lineup against his former team. Elias "Junior" Pettersson played just 10:21 against the Blues, the lowest ice time on the team; he'll likely head to the press box.
Here are the Canucks' projected lines:
We'll have to wait until warm-up to see if the Canucks make any changes to these lines, as they won't hold a morning skate thanks to the early start time. It's possible that Jonathan Lekkerimäki will draw back into the lineup for Linus Karlsson, for instance.
UPDATE: Sure enough, Lekkerimäki is back in the lineup, with a small shuffle to the bottom-six to accommodate his return.
In addition, the Canucks have switched up their defence pairings in the top-four, putting Filip Hronek back with Quinn Hughes and Tyler Myers back with Marcus Pettersson.
The Canucks' starting goaltender is expected to be Kevin Lankinen. He's lost all three games he's played against the Rangers in his career with an .820 save percentage.
New York Rangers projected lines
The Rangers have been spiraling the last couple of weeks. They're 2-5-2 in their last nine games, which is why they now find themselves out of the playoffs; they were in the second Wild Card spot before these last nine games.
Miller got off to a hot start with the Rangers after the trade, scoring two goals in his first game and following it up with 2 assists in his second. He had 7 goals and 14 points in his first 11 games with the Rangers but has slowed down of late. In the Rangers' nine-game slump, Miller has 4 points, all assists.
Here are the Rangers' projected lines, courtesy of The New York Post's Mollie Walker:
Artemi Panarin - Vincent Trocheck - Will Cuylle
Alexis Lafrenière - J.T. Miller - Mika Zibanejad
Chris Kreider - Sam Carrick - Jonny Brodzinski
Brennan Othman - Juuso Pärssinen - Matt Rempe
K'Andre Miller - Adam Fox
Carson Soucy - Will Borgen
Zac Jones - Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
There is, of course, one other former Canuck on the Rangers. The Canucks traded Carson Soucy to the Rangers for a third-round pick ahead of the trade deadline. Soucy was a healthy scratch for three games recently but is back in the lineup on the second pairing alongside Will Borgen.
The Rangers' starting goaltender is expected to be Igor Shesterkin, who has a .907 save percentage this season. He has a 4-1-1 record against the Canucks in his career, with an .878 save percentage.
