Canucks won’t feel pressure to deal Miller until 2023 NHL Trade Deadline

The Vancouver Canucks won’t feel pressure to trade forward J.T. Miller until the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline approaches, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said Friday.

Speaking on “Donnie & Dhali — The Team” on CHEK television, Rutherford pushed back on the idea of growing impatience surrounding the future of Miller, who led the Canucks in points (99) and assists (67) and tied Elias Pettersson for the Vancouver lead in goals (32) last season. The 29-year-old can become an unrestricted free agent after this season.

Rutherford said the Canucks are trying to re-sign him but said it won’t be easy to match Miller’s contract expectations to what Vancouver feels it can afford to pay.

“I’ll state the obvious: It can go two ways,” Rutherford said. “We can come to an agreement and keep him and we have a very good player. That’s always difficult to do when a player is heading to free agency within a year and he’s got really good numbers, so of course what the player is expecting in the way of a contract compared to the team is usually different.”

If the sides can’t agree on a contract, Rutherford said the Canucks will trade Miller but that there won’t be pressure to do so for a while.

“If [trying to sign him] doesn’t work, we have to get the best return we can for him,” Rutherford said. “But I think when the impatience should come on J.T. Miller is when we get closer to the trade deadline, and if we don’t have him signed at that point, making sure that we get a return for him. But I don’t see where there’s any urgency until we get to the trade deadline.”

Video: Top 5 J.T. Miller Plays from the 2021-22 Season

The Canucks improved their forward depth, speed and penalty-killing with the free agent additions Wednesday of Ilya Mikheyev, who signed a four-year contract; Curtis Lazar, who agreed to a three-year contract; Andrei Kuzmnenko, who signed a one-year contract; and Dakota Joshua, who agreed to a two-year contract (financial terms were not disclosed). But they hope to bolster a defenseman group that remains unchanged from last season, when Vancouver (40-30-12) missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the sixth time in seven seasons.

Besides adding help on the blue line, Rutherford has talked about wanting to create more space under the NHL salary cap, and both things could be accomplished by trading Miller, whose contract has an average annual value of $5.25 million. Since being acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 22, 2019, Miller leads…