Player Discussion JT Miller Thread

[PuckMunchkin]

I think that a lot of the disagreement is that I did have him pegged as a player on the verge of breaking out if given more minutes on a higher line and never thought he was the core player that needed to be traded.

Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

I know emotions are running high about the trade right now but I did some digging and it looks like Miller is a stud player. On Tampa last season he was their 5th best point producing forward (8th best goal-scoring forward) while playing the 9th most minutes. He was getting good PP TOI per...

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

???? Has Baertschi ever hit 40 By the numbers Baertschi is interchangeable with Miller if not for his injuries.

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

Don't worry everyone ... according to Benning's presser, Miller also scored very highly on his "mentor machine" and will almost certainly positively impact the development of all our young forwards. Thank gosh! He'll be great for mentoring the 1st overall pick in 2021!

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

Why must any attempt at improvement come at the expense of a first round pick for a team that's crested 83 points once in 6 seasons. I don't think anybody was inclined for the team not to do anything, that's you creating a false argument to argue with. Who wants to completely blow it up after...

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

Why must any attempt at improvement come at the expense of a first round pick for a team that's crested 83 points once in 6 seasons. I don't think anybody was inclined for the team not to do anything, that's you creating a false argument to argue with. Who wants to completely blow it up after...

forums.hfboards.com

Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

Why must any attempt at improvement come at the expense of a first round pick for a team that's crested 83 points once in 6 seasons. I don't think anybody was inclined for the team not to do anything, that's you creating a false argument to argue with. Who wants to completely blow it up after...

forums.hfboards.com

Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

Why must any attempt at improvement come at the expense of a first round pick for a team that's crested 83 points once in 6 seasons. I don't think anybody was inclined for the team not to do anything, that's you creating a false argument to argue with. Who wants to completely blow it up after...

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

What people forget is Vancouver was not the only team Tampa had to move salary to. They had a plethora of players they could have moved out, and many teams would be interested in many of those players. Tampa didn't have a plethora of players to move. From the group of nine players making $4M+...

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

DeHaan has had four major shoulder surgeries. Benning overpaid for Miller, but the comparison with DeHaan is senseless. He would be our 4th best D man behind Edler, Hughes and Stecher. Also the trade doesnt include a potential lottery pick. I value top 4 D men far above 50p wingers.

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Player Discussion - What do we have in J.T. Miller?

I could not disagree more. You have to show and prove for debates to go anywhere. What me2 did by outlining Higgins' EVPs is push to quantify the comparison. He is outlining the importance of EVPs. This shows knowledge with advanced metrics. EVPs are more reliable than total points. The latter...

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I was bullish on him being a mid 1st-line level player and don't really care what others thought of him at the time.

I get that the issue was always more about the timing and the risk that we'd have to give up a very high value pick for Miller but hindsight is even making that look questionable. There haven't been that many players from those drafts that are tracking to be a Miller level player. I said at the time that'd be happy giving up a pick 12OA or worse for Miller and have been thus far vindicated in having made that assessment.

This is leaving out sooooo many factors that you need to consider.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Is the frame now that the opposite of dealing that pick is to rebuild the rebuild?

You can trade futures if your team is positioned to compete. They were not at that time, clearly, as history shows.

I don't think Miller was assured to be a top line player at the time of trade (again, iirc). He hadn't shown that in the traditional stats to that point (across NYR and TBay), nor did his underlying numbers across his career predict that outcome here. But even if he was a projected 2C, that was still a very risky gamble that ultimately, didn't move the needle for that team (3 years missed).

Oh, and Benning was ultimately fired for failing to recognize the state of that team. We are now onto Miller's second contract here, a while removed from when this management tried to also move Miller, but did not because they couldn't find a 6-year loser GM desperate enough to pony up an unprotected 1st...

If we hadn't picked up Miller chances are the new management group would have blown up the team. If we replaced him with a 50-point free agent winger, we almost certainly wouldn't have been in a position to trade Horvat for Hronek, which means we're still looking at a collection of 4th defensemen and Hughes and are still in the basement. If we were still in the basement this season I think we'd all agree that it's time to sell everybody except Hughes.

As for the trade moving the needle, we don't make the bubble playoffs without him and aren't 1st overall now. There's also a chance that we could have been a bubble team in 20-21 if not for the Pettersson injury. There's always a luck factor in the NHL.

Besides, if we had the bubble run and went back to the playoffs the next year to an ignoble 1st round expert does that change the value of the Miller trade?

 

[Tables of Stats]

This is leaving out sooooo many factors that you need to consider.

Clearly we should have gone for DeHaan and Haula instead right?

 

[Bleach Clean]

If we hadn't picked up Miller chances are the new management group would have blown up the team. If we replaced him with a 50-point free agent winger, we almost certainly wouldn't have been in a position to trade Horvat for Hronek, which means we're still looking at a collection of 4th defensemen and Hughes and are still in the basement. If we were still in the basement this season I think we'd all agree that it's time to sell everybody except Hughes.

As for the trade moving the needle, we don't make the bubble playoffs without him and aren't 1st overall now. There's also a chance that we could have been a bubble team in 20-21 if not for the Pettersson injury. There's always a luck factor in the NHL.

Besides, if we had the bubble run and went back to the playoffs the next year to an ignoble 1st round expert does that change the value of the Miller trade?

Possibly, but here's the crux of this: Why are we dealing in hypotheticals while ignoring what actually has occurred? They went to the bubble (uncommon playing field), and failed 3 years afterwards. That GM got fired. Fired, for failing to assess the team's strength, or the context to which JT Miller was added to. If that doesn't hammer home that this trade was mis-timed, nothing else will.

Outside of that, your post contains a series of assumptions that would take a long time to break down logically. However, if we're trying to get to a point of understanding, if that's our goal, then we have our answer on context. We can then move to discussing how Miller developed beyond expectation to be what he is now. His development in that regard is astonishing.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Possibly, but here's the crux of this: Why are we dealing in hypotheticals while ignoring what actually has occurred? They went to the bubble (uncommon playing field), and failed 3 years afterwards. That GM got fired. Fired, for failing to assess the team's strength, or the context to which JT Miller was added to. If that doesn't hammer home that this trade was mis-timed, nothing else will.

Outside of that, your post contains a series of assumptions that would take a long time to break down logically. However, if we're trying to get to a point of understanding, if that's our goal, then we have our answer on context. We can then move to discussing how Miller developed beyond expectation to be what he is now. His development in that regard is astonishing.

Then I could say the same about what was actually given up for Miller. Why hand ring over the potential assets we moved for him when the reality is we gave a 2020 20th OA pick (Mukhamadullin), a 2019 71OA pick (Hugo Alnefelt), and a goalie that never played another game in NA (Mazanec). Which of these pieces would you rather have in the system over Miller?

 

[Bleach Clean]

Then I could say the same about what was actually given up for Miller. Why hand ring over the potential assets we moved for him when the reality is we gave a 2020 20th OA pick (Mukhamadullin), a 2019 71OA pick (Hugo Alnefelt), and a goalie that never played another game in NA (Mazanec). Which of these pieces would you rather have in the system over Miller?

Good eventual trade value, bad timing. As I said above, both of these things can be true.

Last thing I'll add here: Benning was damned lucky that trade didn't blow up in his face like everything else did. Worst GM in Canucks history and I can't believe he was ever supported here.

Cheers.

 

[mriswith]

I think that a lot of the disagreement is that I did have him pegged as a player on the verge of breaking out if given more minutes on a higher line and never thought he was the core player that needed to be traded.

I'm not seeing any disagreement. Below is what I wrote that you responded to, and then below that is your post from 2019 that you quoted

Lots of players put up good numbers from sheltered minutes and it doesn't translate to a bigger role. 3rd liner is an exaggeration, most expectations were a 50-60 point 2nd line winger. No one at the time expected Miller to become a star.

He's been a 2.5 P/60 player for the past 3 seasons so if we play him the same minutes as we played Pearson this past season and assume he plays the same 75 games as last season we can expect a 53 point season. If we play him closer to 18 minutes per night he's at a 58 point pace in 75 games.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Judging by some posters twisted logic here,..we'd also have to assume that the Marcus Naslund trade was bad trade , because of poor timing..We didnt make the playoffs for the first 4 years he was here.

These takes are presumably, from the same posters in fantasyland mode ,that thought we could implode the entire team except for QH and EP.

 

[Tables of Stats]

I'm not seeing any disagreement. Below is what I wrote that you responded to, and then below that is your post from 2019 that you quoted

I was defending him as a mid-tier 1st liner who could play both wings and C and did suggest he could be poised to break out here. I don't tend to get overly bold or bombastic in my predictions so me stepping outside of what math suggests to say I like a player is pretty high praise.

We won't be seeing my hype up another Gaudette-type prospect as the next big thing ever again after how that went.

 

[Regal]

It is if your team is not set up to take advantage of that player. Lipstick on a pig.

This has nothing to do with video games, or Benning's incompetence (which is legendary). It's simply looking at team effectiveness at the time and assessing how much impact such a move would make. The evidence shows that it wasn't much. They were 6 years in the basement before the trade and three years back in the basement post bubble playoffs. That's the result. That's what they thought they were adding a 26 year old top6 forward to.

You're not going to get a sense of age impacts until Miller starts to decline mid way through his contract. To this point though, he's been great... on a generally bad team.

Miller was 26 and was being added to a team with a Pettersson, Boeser and Horvat at 21,22 and 24 and Quinn Hughes coming in at 20. The idea behind a Miller deal is that you have a good young core and you’re adding someone who can still fill into that age group and hopefully they grow together. This wasn’t a 30 year old to put a team over the top, it was someone you could get 4-5 prime years out of. His cost was in line with the player he was at the time and there was hope that he still had more potential.

You originally suggesting that we can’t use hindsight on the deal but that’s exactly what you’re doing by mentioning missing the playoffs. You can use that to say the deal was the wrong timing at the time and then say we can’t use hindsight today when the team is doing well. The reality is the team didn’t put it together after the deal the way management had hoped, but that doesn’t make the deal it itself bad. It was a decent move to get a good player, who again, could have been moved for a similar price later in his deal if the team wasn’t improving. It’s total video game/HF bullshit mentality to view every deal from the perspective of “well the team didn’t end up competing while that player was at his best so it was a bad deal”

 

[Bleach Clean]

Miller was 26 and was being added to a team with a Pettersson, Boeser and Horvat at 21,22 and 24 and Quinn Hughes coming in at 20. The idea behind a Miller deal is that you have a good young core and you’re adding someone who can still fill into that age group and hopefully they grow together. This wasn’t a 30 year old to put a team over the top, it was someone you could get 4-5 prime years out of. His cost was in line with the player he was at the time and there was hope that he still had more potential.

You originally suggesting that we can’t use hindsight on the deal but that’s exactly what you’re doing by mentioning missing the playoffs. You can use that to say the deal was the wrong timing at the time and then say we can’t use hindsight today when the team is doing well. The reality is the team didn’t put it together after the deal the way management had hoped, but that doesn’t make the deal it itself bad. It was a decent move to get a good player, who again, could have been moved for a similar price later in his deal if the team wasn’t improving. It’s total video game/HF bullshit mentality to view every deal from the perspective of “well the team didn’t end up competing while that player was at his best so it was a bad deal”

I said it worked out to be a good trade eventually, that was badly timed. I did not say it was a bad trade overall. There is nuance there that I think you're glossing over.

It's ironic though, to me, that doing things to open up windows as teams have traditionally done is seen as video game/HF BS, but that cart-before-horse trades like Miller that need successive hope-based trades to work, while being mired in a 6 year basement AirBNB, is seen as hockey professional/mature trade assessment. All a matter of perspective, I suppose.

Fair point about hindsight bias, but the context there was post-trade reality vs. hypothetical fantasy. Both stretch beyond the initial scope. I'm fine with assessing the landscape pre-trade though, it's the best way.

 

[Diamonddog01]

What is the point of rehashing this tired, exhausted argument in 2024?

I was neutral regarding the JT Miller trade at the time but hated the Hronek trade when it happened.

Guess what - they are very similar in thought process and execution. I mean sure, you can split hairs regarding TB's cap situation vs Detroit simply not wanting to pay Hronek but they've both been home runs for this franchise. If you liked the Hronek deal you should be happy with the Miller trade and vice versa.

 

[Bleach Clean]

What is the point of rehashing this tired, exhausted argument in 2024?

I was neutral regarding the JT Miller trade at the time but hated the Hronek trade when it happened.

Guess what - they are very similar in thought process and execution. I mean sure, you can split hairs regarding TB's cap situation vs Detroit simply not wanting to pay Hronek but they've both been home runs for this franchise. If you liked the Hronek deal you should be happy with the Miller trade and vice versa.

I didn't like the timing of the Hronek deal either.

This is really about why people don't like the timing of these moves, but can still acknowledge that eventually it worked out. If one says timing is irrelevant, that's when these discussions get re-hashed.

 

[F A N]

I didn't like the timing of the Hronek deal either.

This is really about why people don't like the timing of these moves, but can still acknowledge eventually worked out. If one says timing is irrelevant, that's when these discussions get re-hashed.

I think being concerned with the timing of the trade at the time is fair. Refusing to move off it despite overwhelming good results is stupid.

Consider this. If the Canucks were where they were at the time of the Miller trade and acquired a 26 year old McDavid or Crosby level player on a good cost controlled contract at a fair price does timing really matter? People underestimate the value of adding a front-line player to the lineup and how quick it can change a team’s fortunes.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Clearly we should have gone for DeHaan and Haula instead right?

What does that have to do with your flawed argument?

 

[Play]

Judging by some posters twisted logic here,..we'd also have to assume that the Marcus Naslund trade was bad trade , because of poor timing..We didnt make the playoffs for the first 4 years he was here.

These takes are presumably, from the same posters in fantasyland mode ,that thought we could implode the entire team except for QH and EP.

Agreed.. some surprising takes here that really make you think, not for the sake of the argument though

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Judging by some posters twisted logic here,..we'd also have to assume that the Marcus Naslund trade was bad trade , because of poor timing..We didnt make the playoffs for the first 4 years he was here.

Remind me again.

What futures did we give up for Näslund?
Has the CBA changed in any meaningful way since then that would significantly change how teams now operate?

These takes are presumably, from the same posters in fantasyland mode ,that thought we could implode the entire team except for QH and EP.

You were the Emperor of Fantasyland for a decade.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Remind me again.

What futures did we give up for Näslund?
Has the CBA changed in any meaningful way since then that would significantly change how teams now operate?

You were the Emperor of Fantasyland for a decade.

Has nothing to to with futures , or the CBA., we still gave up an asset...The premise of' its a bad trade because the team didnt make the playoffs' is a dumb one.

You endorsed that Fantasyland in 2020..Hypocrite..How are those ankles..?

 

[Bleach Clean]

I think being concerned with the timing of the trade at the time is fair. Refusing to move off it despite overwhelming good results is stupid.

Consider this. If the Canucks were where they were at the time of the Miller trade and acquired a 26 year old McDavid or Crosby level player on a good cost controlled contract at a fair price does timing really matter? People underestimate the value of adding a front-line player to the lineup and how quick it can change a team’s fortunes.

Appeal to the extreme.

In most cases, given the profile of most players, what you have said does not occur.

This is about probability, both in terms of player quality and the likelihood that said iteration of the team would be turned around (6 years in the basement). The probability was low. That's bad timing.

On appealing to the extreme: This is why I would not suggest bad teams (CHI, SJ) trade their 1st rounder this year, rather just draft with it. Sure, they could find a McDavid via trade, but how likely is that to happen?... And so on.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Remind me again.

What futures did we give up for Näslund?

The Naslund argument is a strawman. (which you have already sussed out)

The Canucks made a lateral trade there. The Miller trade was anything but.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Has nothing to to with futures , or the CBA., we still gave up an asset...The premise of' its a bad trade because the team didnt make the playoffs' is a dumb one.

We gave up an enforcer for a failing skilled player.

There was no salary cap.

These matter in how you build a team in 2023 vs the 90s. You not legitimately understanding this explains how you defended Jim Benning's reign of error for a decade.

You endorsed that Fantasyland in 2020..Hypocrite..How are those ankles..?

This is incredibly dishonest even for you.

But what else is new.

 

[God]

the team that acquired naslund was in a completely different spot than the team that acquired miller. they were two years removed from the cup finals and traded their failing 1st round pick from 5 years prior for another failing 1st round pick from 5 years ago. in essence it was similar to the hodgson for kassian trade... which actually would've worked out for us had kassian not been so lackadaisical with his professionalism.

besides, the point of contention about the miller trade isn't the player himself. it's the fact that the team gave up a 1st round pick that would've been unprotected had the team not been able to take the next step in the following two seasons. they got bailed out by covid.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

We gave up an enforcer for a failing skilled player.

There was no salary cap.

These matter in how you build a team in 2023 vs the 90s. You not legitimately understanding this explains how you defended Jim Benning's reign of error for a decade.


This is incredibly dishonest even for you.

But what else is new.

Lol..The management has done the complete opposite of every one of your suggestions..Thank god for that..You were obviously getting obliterated on all your suggestions for this new management (and your childish hissy fits and meltdowns were epic).

Again, a great trade is a great regardless of the cycle your teams in.

I signed up here in 2017, ( so 4 years of Benning ..not a decade..math is your friend)...and yeah, I liked the progression from 2017 to 2020 (so did you, as you've demonstrated...funny how you dishonestly keep deflecting on that).

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

the team that acquired naslund was in a completely different spot than the team that acquired miller. they were two years removed from the cup finals and traded their failing 1st round pick from 5 years prior for another failing 1st round pick from 5 years ago. in essence it was similar to the hodgson for kassian trade... which actually would've worked out for us had kassian not been so lackadaisical with his professionalism.

besides, the point of contention about the miller trade isn't the player himself. it's the fact that the team gave up a 1st round pick that would've been unprotected had the team not been able to take the next step in the following two seasons. they got bailed out by covid.

It was gamble they got right..They had a squad of Markstrom,Horvat, Pettersson,Hughes,Boeser,Edler,Tanev..That was a good squad, and Miller was the final piece of our core group..as they demonstrated in the 2020 playoffs.

We can all sit here and play the 'what if ' game forever regarding that pick

 

[God]

It was gamble they got right..They had a squad of Markstrom,Horvat, Pettersson,Hughes,Boeser,Edler,Tanev..That was a good squad, and Miller was the final piece of our core group..as they demonstrated in the 2020 playoffs.

We can all sit here and play the 'what if ' game forever regarding that pick

They missed the playoffs in the last 4 seasons, were barely a playoff team (believe they were in the 2nd wild card spot) playing .500 hockey before the shutdown, and got way worse in 20-21. Successfully gambling on a 10% outcome doesn't deserve praise.

Like, if some degenerate put a $1,000 wager on the VAN-MIN game having more than 15.5 goals and won $500,000, are you really going to give them props? It's an extreme example but the point stands.