Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Rutherford had two very blunt messages in regards to rumours that J.T. Miller was on leave from the team because he had requested a trade.
First, the Canucks aren’t trading their star forward. Second, people should stick to trade rumours rather than speculating about a player’s personal situation.
“No, we are not (trading him),” Rutherford told Patrick Johnston of The Province. “We stand by him.”
“Don’t start making stuff up on someone in his situation,” Rutherford continued. “That’s disrespectful. People that do this for fun, or for a living, just go back to making up trade rumours.”
Miller has been on a personal leave from the Canucks since mid-November and there’s no indication of when he’ll be back other than a report that Team USA ‘fully expects” him to be ready for the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.
The 2023-24 season was the first year of a seven-year, $56 million contract and Miller came through with career-highs in goals with 37 and points with 103. The Canucks won the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record and lost in Game 7 of the second round of the playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers.
Over 17 games in 2024-25 before stepping away from the team, Miller scored six goals and put up 16 points while winning 59.1 percent of his faceoffs. Vancouver is in third place in the Pacific Division with a 13-7-4 record and they’ve gone 4-2-1 in seven games without Miller.

Andrei Kuzmenko made a healthy scratch by the Flames

It’s been a very difficult start to the season for Andrei Kuzmenko in Calgary. Mired in what’s now a 21-game goalless drought, the skilled winger was made a healthy scratch by the Flames when they hosted the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.
The Flames dropped all four games on a road trip through the Eastern Conference and scratching Kuzmenko was part of a shake-up ahead of a very emotional game against Columbus. The Blue Jackets were playing in Calgary for the first time since Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau passed away in the summer and the Flames gave a touching tribute to the brothers before the game.
After scoring 14 goals and 25 points in 29 games with the Flames in the latter part of the 2023-24 season, Kuzmenko only has one goal and nine points through the first 25 games this year.
This is the second time Kuzmenko has had a difficult sophomore season after joining a new team. He broke out with 39 goals and 74 points as a rookie with the Canucks in 2022-23 and inked a two-year, $11 million extension in the middle of that season.
The following season, Kuzmenko had a sharp decline in production. He was made a healthy scratch by the Canucks five times by January and had only eight goals and 21 points in 43 games when he was moved to the Flames as part of the return for Elias Lindholm.
Kuzmenko is now in the second season of that aforementioned two-year deal worth $5.5 million annually. He’s set to become an unrestricted free agent in the off-season.

Other news and notes from around the NHL…

  • The Canucks will be without defenceman Filip Hronek for approximately eight weeks as the defender underwent successful surgery for a lower-body injury. Hronek has racked up one goal and eight assists for nine points in 21 games this season while playing with captain Quinn Hughes on Vancouver’s top defensive pairing. The team inked Hronek to an eight-year contract with a $7.25 million cap hit in the off-season.
  • Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars is set to undergo hip surgery later this month and is expected to miss four-to-six months while recovering. The 33-year-old forward has nine goals and 20 points over 19 games for the Stars this season. This is the second time that Seguin has had a hip operation done, as he had surgery to repair a torn labrum back in October of 2020.

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