Maybe the Canucks' Miller-Pettersson Story Is Best Left in

There was a time when almost every conversation about the Vancouver Canucks seemed to come back to J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. What happened between them? Who was responsible? Could it be fixed? And eventually, which one would be leaving Vancouver?

We got an answer to that last question. Miller was traded to the New York Rangers, and Pettersson remained. But we never really got an answer to the rest of it. Maybe that's okay.

Miller finally revealed some vague details about the issue’s impact.

Miller's recent appearance on Spittin' Chiclets has brought the old story back into the hockey conversation. During a golf outing, he joked about Pettersson being in his backswing and made a passing reference to the rehab he went through during his time away from the Canucks. It was clearly delivered as a joke, and Miller seemed comfortable enough with the subject to let the comment stand.

That doesn't necessarily mean we're suddenly going to learn what happened. And perhaps we shouldn't.

There was a real person behind all of that speculation. Miller was struggling, stepped away from the team and sought help. The Canucks were deliberately careful about what they said at the time, and for good reason. Not everything that happens inside a hockey dressing room needs to become public property simply because the players involved are famous.

The same is true of Pettersson.

For years, his name was tied to Miller's, and not always because of what happened on the ice. That's probably not particularly fair to either player. Teammates don't always get along. Personalities don't always mesh. Sometimes attempts to repair a relationship don't work. As Rick Tocchet eventually said, there didn't necessarily have to be a villain.

That might be the most useful thing to remember now.

It seems like a better time to focus on the Canucks’ future rather than their past.

Maybe that's the real takeaway for the Canucks. The Miller-Pettersson story will probably always be part of the franchise's recent history, but it doesn't have to be part of its future. Vancouver has moved on, Pettersson is still here, and there is plenty of hockey ahead of him. At some point, the old questions have to give way to a new one: What can Elias Pettersson do now that the story is finally his to write?