Player Discussion JT Miller Thread

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

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.

In the 20-21 season, they changed the chemistry of the team (due to poor salary cap management), and then had the worst covid outbreak of any team in pro sport history...Couple that with the GM at the time, couldn't put a cohesive team around his core group (something that JR/PA have accomplished in spades) from 2020 onwards.

That core group of Demko,Hughes,Boeser,Pettersson,Miller is still the same core group (currently in 1st place) from 3 years ago.

 

[bandwagonesque]

Has the CBA changed in any meaningful way since then that would significantly change how teams now operate?

Yes, in ways that make it even more important to acquire players who massively outperform their contracts like JT Miller did as soon as he was traded for.

You're at a point in an argument where you're just blurting out stuff in defence of your position without giving any serious thought to whether it really supports it, or whether it has other implications that contradict your argument.

 

[God]

In the 20-21 season, they changed the chemistry of the team (due to poor salary cap management), and then had the worst covid outbreak of any team in pro sport history...Couple that with the GM at the time, couldn't put a cohesive team around his core group (something that JR/PA have accomplished in spades) from 2020 onwards.

That core group of Demko,Hughes,Boeser,Pettersson,Miller is still the same core group (currently in 1st place) from 3 years ago.

I mean, this was forseeable at the time of the JTM trade. Contracts expire and you plan for it.

And yeah, the GM at the time could never put a cohesive group around the core group, so the criticism of the trade at the time was 1000% warranted. It was dependent on making the playoffs. If a team like Carolina made the exact same trade, the same criticism probably wouldn't have been levied on the trade.

 

[Tables of Stats]

What does that have to do with your flawed argument?

It has to do with the fact that you're a terrible evaluator of talent for having wanted those two players. You were wrong about Miller and thus valued him less than you should have, leading to you seeing getting him as a larger risk than it was, and valuing junk like Haula and DeHaan too highly. If we listened to you we'd still be in the Benning years with an ocean bland of middle six players and Gudbranson level defenders.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

It has to do with the fact that you're a terrible evaluator of talent for having wanted those two players. You were wrong about Miller and thus valued him less than you should have, leading to you seeing getting him as a larger risk than it was, and valuing junk like Haula and DeHaan too highly. If we listened to you we'd still be in the Benning years with an ocean bland of middle six players and Gudbranson level defenders.

I dont understand what you are trying to do here.

Haula is a great 2 way forward.

DeHaan was a cheap bounce back candidate who didn't pan out.

- I was correct about EP40 when we drafted him
- I was right about Suter and Dakota Joshua this summer

I dont get your point...

Of course I was wrong about JT Miller. I have zero trouble admitting that. But so were 99,9% of people because he is an outlier.
- Usually players who play a physical forechecking style, decline faster.
- Usually players who play wing for almost all their NHL career dont successfully swich to center at 29.
- Usually players who have not sniffed point per game pace dont become 100 point producers nearing their 30s.

An unlikely thing happened and you voiced an opinion early that it might happen. I dont know how much his games you watched or what in his statistical profile made you think this.



Did you miss the sentence I bolded out and was responding to or what on earth is going on here?

"There haven't been that many players from those drafts that are tracking to be a Miller level player."

This is not enough. You cannot asses traded picks like this.

Timing matters.

Cap hits matter.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Did you miss the sentence I bolded out and was responding to or what on earth is going on here?

"There haven't been that many players from those drafts that are tracking to be a Miller level player."

This is not enough. You cannot asses traded picks like this.

Timing matters.

Cap hits matter.

Yes, you can. We traded for a player who immediately proved to be worth more than we paid for him. Both drafts we could have traded away our pick in only had a handful of players that are close to Miller's value. In cases where both of these things are true, there isn't a bad time to make that trade.

I was high on Miller based on him consistently putting up points regardless of the quality of his linemates or his ice time, his ability to drive play at 5-on-5 or to slot into a successful PP, and his ability to play a heavy game without taking penalties. That is the kind of player who is almost always worth gambling on, especially when you're able to trade a protected pick to do so.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Yes, you can. We traded for a player who immediately proved to be worth more than we paid for him. Both drafts we could have traded away our pick in only had a handful of players that are close to Miller's value. In cases where both of these things are true, there isn't a bad time to make that trade.

Its far more complicated than that.

As for the rest of your post his most common linemate his last season with Tampa was Steven Stamkos and he was getting prime PP time there too.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Yes, you can. We traded for a player who immediately proved to be worth more than we paid for him. Both drafts we could have traded away our pick in only had a handful of players that are close to Miller's value. In cases where both of these things are true, there isn't a bad time to make that trade.

Curious about something, are you saying that a mid-aged 2C is worth more than any non-top5 pick? Is that the premise of your argument?

To quantify things a bit here: Since 2012-13 to 2018-19, Miller ranked 189th among forwards with a 0.54 P/GP. This is over 435 games to that point. At the end of 2nd line status. Is this then an asset that is automatically worth more than a non-top5 pick?

Please also note before answering: The pick is currency. It can be used to draft players and trade for alternative players.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Its far more complicated than that.

As for the rest of your post his most common linemate his last season with Tampa was Steven Stamkos and he was getting prime PP time there too.

Are we really going to rehash this again... Miller play with Stamkos 45% of the time and scored at the same rate with him as he did away from him. I also addressed his PP scoring at the time as he'd proven with NYR that he could generate points without being a prolific PP scorer. His inflated PP:5-on-5 ratio in Tampa was more a reflection of his usage than his skill as a player.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Curious about something, are you saying that a mid-aged 2C is worth more than any non-top5 pick? Is that the premise of your argument?

To quantify things a bit here: Since 2012-13 to 2018-19, Miller ranked 189th among forwards with a 0.54 P/GP. This is over 435 games to that point. At the end of 2nd line status. Is this then an asset that is automatically worth more than a non-top5 pick?

Please also note before answering: The pick is currency. It can be used to draft players and trade for alternative players.

No, I'm saying that Miller specifically is worth more than all but a handful of players taken in the 2020 and 2021 drafts. Miller, even at the time, gad traits that suggested he was not just an average 2C. I argued as much immediately post trade and have since been proven correct in being bullish on Miller.

Given what we paid for Miller, please tell me how we could have gotten a higher value asset than Miller for the 20th OA pick, a 71st OA pick, and a junk contract?

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Are we really going to rehash this again... Miller play with Stamkos 45% of the time and scored at the same rate with him as he did away from him. I also addressed his PP scoring at the time as he'd proven with NYR that he could generate points without being a prolific PP scorer. His inflated PP:5-on-5 ratio in Tampa was more a reflection of his usage than his skill as a player.

He is still a FAR more efficient PP player than a 5on5 play driver.

Also. You are now completely ignoring the initial point I was referring to.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

No, I'm saying that Miller specifically is worth more than all but a handful of players taken in the 2020 and 2021 drafts. Miller, even at the time, gad traits that suggested he was not just an average 2C. I argued as much immediately post trade and have since been proven correct in being bullish on Miller.

Given what we paid for Miller, please tell me how we could have gotten a higher value asset than Miller for the 20th OA pick, a 71st OA pick, and a junk contract?

These are people who are opinionated on things they have limited info on.

I liked the Miller trade at the time, wanna know why? Because I knew who he was and had seen him play a bunch for NYR and Tampa and knew that he was big, intense, physical, and a fantastic playmaker. He's turned out even better than I could have predicted, but a whole bunch of people were dunking on the trade because they didn't know anything about him except that Benning had acquired him.

Benning made a lot of bad moves so a lot of low info, negative people gained a lot of unearned confidence.

The same people were screaming about Lekkerimaki and Hronek when we acquired them. The same people were screaming about dumping Boeser even if we had to attach a 2nd.

It's okay to be wrong, but when you can't admit you were wrong and have to double down to 'save face' it means you never learn from your mistakes and that gets pretty tedious to deal with.

 

[Tables of Stats]

He is still a FAR more efficient PP player than a 5on5 play driver.

Also. You are now completely ignoring the initial point I was referring to.

He's still 12th in points at even strength so it's not like he's not a play driver at even strength. Over his entire tenure here he's been 20th in even strength points in the entire league, so if you're trying to denigrate his play by pointing out that he does even better on the PP I don't feel like that carries any particular weight. What point are you trying to make by arguing about where Miller scores more points?

So what exactly is your point? It seems to be that you don't think a team can ever trade a 1st round pick if they've been bad for an extended time. I fundamentally disagree and believe that there is never a bad time to make a trade if you're getting the right value back.

 

[sting101]

You gotta be incredibly stubborn to not concede that the Miller trade was an absolute steal and a stroke of genius.....ok maybe wrong word given who made the trade

And yes a broken clock

But wholly F just let it go. Loved the deal from day one did have some concerns because of the GM and that he could be the one to sign depth D to play in our top 4 and journeymen to legacy contracts might screw up enough of everything else to give Tampa a lottery pick but geez it was pretty obvious we were about to become a decent team with a couple good additions and the gamble was a good one on odds of him being right about it.

If you ever want to climb out of being in a rebuild or whatever the F they wanted to call it you have to give your young players some support and as we have been saying for the last 10yrs target impact players. Miller was 26 and is a impact player.....great move end of story.

How much value do you have to get before you can concede we won the lottery with JT Miller. They were extremely high on the player and at 26 you could expect in a bigger role and with maturity he could become a bigger component.

It happened you thought otherwise and have been proven wrong.

 

[Blue and Green]

To quantify things a bit here: Since 2012-13 to 2018-19, Miller ranked 189th among forwards with a 0.54 P/GP. This is over 435 games to that point. At the end of 2nd line status. Is this then an asset that is automatically worth more than a non-top5 pick?

Canucks didn't trade for the 19YO-21YO Miller who scored 33 points in 114 games. They traded for the guy who had 204 points in the preceding four seasons and was a on a bargain contract for four more seasons.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

He's still 12th in points at even strength so it's not like he's not a play driver at even strength.
Over his entire tenure here he's been 20th in even strength points in the entire league, so if you're trying to denigrate his play by pointing out that he does even better on the PP I don't feel like that carries any particular weight. What point are you trying to make by arguing about where Miller scores more points?

Lets just forget about JT Miller the player.

We disagree somewhat as to what he is. But that's not important here and we wont get anywhere discussing him.

So what exactly is your point? It seems to be that you don't think a team can ever trade a 1st round pick if they've been bad for an extended time. I fundamentally disagree and believe that there is never a bad time to make a trade if you're getting the right value back.

Thank you for (kind of) asking.


My point is that you cannot just look at "Did player drafted with pick X become better or worse than the player pick X was traded for."

There other factors.

The biggest of all is timing.

I presume we both agree that it would make ZERO sense for Anaheim Ducks to trade a package of picks and prospects to Pittsburgh for Sidney Crosby at this TDL. Even though it is very very very likely those picks and prospects combined will not be as good as Sidney Crosby. This would be insane. Yes. Crosby is great. Yes it would make the team less bad. But it would not be a move towards contending.

Correct?

Here is my line of thinking;

With the current CBA there is a natural ebb and flow to the success of the NHL Clubs. You succeed, end up with expensive aging players, players decline, team gets worse, you get higher draft picks, get better young players and rinse and repeat.

To me the only way to operate is lean in to the ebbs and flows. You need to be bad with a purpose when you are bad and then you need to ship your futures to load up as much capital in to your rosters when you are good to try to win that cup.

To me, the Miller trade is the opposite of leaning to this ebb & flow. It forced the team to be better when they were naturally still going to be bad. This is how you end up not being quite as bad and then not being quite as good either when the rubber band of the league is pulling you back up.

Does any of this make sense to you?

 

[CanucksSayEh]

With Myers being out now, JT is the only player who hasn't missed a game due to injury over his tenure here.

 

[Play]

He’s playing better than Draisaitl

 

[HairyKneel]

Here for my daily dose of crow.
8 mil for JT rn is a f***ing steal.

At least you have the balls to admit it. Some folks are still willing to die on the hill that it was an awful trade because they want to rebuild with an entire group of kids and that Elmer the Idiot made the deal.

It’s usuallly the analytic neck beards that hate the trade and refuse to see they perhaps made a mistake. I always liked the player but wondered if the timing was right. I ate crow and a few pigeons and admit my initial reaction was wrong. The guy is a horse. The babies crying about him cracking a stick on the net clearly were good dungeons and dragons stars; wouldn’t know how to lace up their skates.

Anyone still complaining about this trade is an abject moron.

 

[vanarchy]

We all talked about how Petey wanted a playoff team but I think Miller wanted it even more. The guy is just relentless out there.

 

[HairyKneel]

Curious about something, are you saying that a mid-aged 2C is worth more than any non-top5 pick? Is that the premise of your argument?

To quantify things a bit here: Since 2012-13 to 2018-19, Miller ranked 189th among forwards with a 0.54 P/GP. This is over 435 games to that point. At the end of 2nd line status. Is this then an asset that is automatically worth more than a non-top5 pick?

Please also note before answering: The pick is currency. It can be used to draft players and trade for alternative players.still

What was his ice time and deployment during his development years? If you still have the time and energy to still defend your position, there’s nothing anyone can do to change your mind. ANY TEAM would make that trade today. Yet there’s still a few wizards claiming that they know more than the “OBC”. Not every guy who played the game is a moron btw. Some of them run pretty good teams. Do you think Jon Cooper never played?

 

[F A N]

Curious about something, are you saying that a mid-aged 2C is worth more than any non-top5 pick? Is that the premise of your argument?

To quantify things a bit here: Since 2012-13 to 2018-19, Miller ranked 189th among forwards with a 0.54 P/GP. This is over 435 games to that point. At the end of 2nd line status. Is this then an asset that is automatically worth more than a non-top5 pick?

Please also note before answering: The pick is currency. It can be used to draft players and trade for alternative players.

This wasn't directed at me, but the belief that the pick was unprotected is wrong and the belief that the pick could have been a top 3 pick was just unreasonable and arguing disingenuously.

The Canucks made the trade after picking 10th overall (and having drafted Hughes and Petey in previous years). The team had Petey and Demko and was adding a full season of Hughes. I believe even you yourself projected that the team was about 2 years away from making the playoffs at the time. Clearly, the projection at the time was adding Miller made the team better and not worse. This was of course also before Covid and the flat cap.

At the time of the trade, Miller was coming off a down year but previously he had increased his point production every season. The Canucks targeted the player and from Day 1 Miller proved to be, at the very least, a 1st line winger.

You gotta be incredibly stubborn to not concede that the Miller trade was an absolute steal and a stroke of genius.....ok maybe wrong word given who made the trade

And yes a broken clock

But wholly F just let it go. Loved the deal from day one did have some concerns because of the GM and that he could be the one to sign depth D to play in our top 4 and journeymen to legacy contracts might screw up enough of everything else to give Tampa a lottery pick but geez it was pretty obvious we were about to become a decent team with a couple good additions and the gamble was a good one on odds of him being right about it.

If you ever want to climb out of being in a rebuild or whatever the F they wanted to call it you have to give your young players some support and as we have been saying for the last 10yrs target impact players. Miller was 26 and is a impact player.....great move end of story.

How much value do you have to get before you can concede we won the lottery with JT Miller. They were extremely high on the player and at 26 you could expect in a bigger role and with maturity he could become a bigger component.

It happened you thought otherwise and have been proven wrong.

Exactly. And Petey was playing with Goldobin/Leivo on his left in his rookie season. Miller instantly upgraded the position and figured to help insulate Petey.

Pairing your star young forward with someone who can help protect the player and help create/finish off plays is an age-old strategy. We did it with the Sedins when the team gave them a steady winger whether that was Klatt or Carter. Bure with Larionov.

 

[pitseleh]

This wasn't directed at me, but the belief that the pick was unprotected is wrong and the belief that the pick could have been a top 3 pick was just unreasonable and arguing disingenuously.

The Canucks made the trade after picking 10th overall (and having drafted Hughes and Petey in previous years). The team had Petey and Demko and was adding a full season of Hughes. I believe even you yourself projected that the team was about 2 years away from making the playoffs at the time. Clearly, the projection at the time was adding Miller made the team better and not worse. This was of course also before Covid and the flat cap.

At the time of the trade, Miller was coming off a down year but previously he had increased his point production every season. The Canucks targeted the player and from Day 1 Miller proved to be, at the very least, a 1st line winger.

Sure, but even after the Miller trade, most models had the Canucks as long shots to make the playoffs, and the over/under on the Canucks was generally around 86-88 points. It would have been reasonable for teams to project they had somewhere between 50 and 90% odds of getting an unprotected pick in 2021. So it wasn't unprotected but had a high probability of becoming so.

And if you projected the Canucks to be a bubble team in 2020/2021, which was also reasonable based on their progression, then you'd be looking at around 50/50 odds of getting a lottery pick if it got there.

So they traded a first that was likely at worst ~20th overall, with a reasonable possibility of being a low lottery pick, and a small probability of serious potential upside. It's actually pretty similar to the pick that was traded for Horvat / Hronek last year, or the one traded for Debrincat the year prior. I think those three would have been more valued than Miller in 2019.

 

[sting101]

It was bold. The only reason it's so widely criticized is because of the perception of the team and Management at the time.

They just drafted Podkolzin Hoglander had Pettersson Horvat Boeser as burgeoning young stars Hughes looked immediately like a special player after his debut Demko and a few others like Goldy Leivo Virtanen MacEwen Stecher etc looked to have some promise Pearson had come on board to join Tanev Edler Markstrom Sutter and a bunch of overpaid but at the time useful depth and role players to help turn things around.

People seemed to think that we overpaid and that we could have drove a hard bargain like we were the only team that Miller could go to when the realty was like Hronek it was a case of here he is this is what were looking for and it's either pay up or the next team up the line gets a shot at him.

The projections didn't account for a impact player in Miller nor Hughes so I wouldnt put too much stalk into them

 

[F A N]

Sure, but even after the Miller trade, most models had the Canucks as long shots to make the playoffs, and the over/under on the Canucks was generally around 86-88 points. It would have been reasonable for teams to project they had somewhere between 50 and 90% odds of getting an unprotected pick in 2021. So it wasn't unprotected but had a high probability of becoming so.

And if you projected the Canucks to be a bubble team in 2020/2021, which was also reasonable based on their progression, then you'd be looking at around 50/50 odds of getting a lottery pick if it got there.

So they traded a first that was likely at worst ~20th overall, with a reasonable possibility of being a low lottery pick, and a small probability of serious potential upside. It's actually pretty similar to the pick that was traded for Horvat / Hronek last year, or the one traded for Debrincat the year prior. I think those three would have been more valued than Miller in 2019.

But let's say it was reasonable to project the Canucks to be a bubble team then. Where do bubble teams draft? 13-16? The picks in those slots were: Coronato, Rosen, Cossa, and Othmann.