It’s Been 82 Games Since The Canucks Dealt J.T. Miller To The New York Rangers; Who Won The Trade?

It has officially been 82 games since the Vancouver Canucks traded J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers for a 2025 first-round pick (later used to acquire Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor), Filip Chytil, and Victor Mancini. Defencemen Erik Brännström and Jackson Dorrington also went to New York with Miller. Now that a full NHL season’s worth of games has passed, let’s take a look at how each piece of the trade has performed. 

For a good chunk of the 2024–25 season, Miller made the Canucks and their fans feel as though they’d made the wrong decision in trading him based on how he performed on the ice. He rounded out his final 32 games of the season with 13 goals and 22 assists, even scoring two goals in his Rangers debut. Miller was also named the team’s captain in September, becoming the 29th player in franchise history to wear the ‘C’. 

Since his sparkling start, things between Miller and the Rangers have soured. New York currently sits at the bottom of the eastern conference and 27th overall in the league’s standings. Part of this has come as a result of their poor home record, which has seen them lose only one-less game than the Canucks in regulation. On an individual level, Miller has yet to reach a similar offensive plateau as last season, registering 13 goals and 19 assists in 42 games. What has made things worse, however, is Rangers fans’ observations of Miller’s body language and effort level when things aren’t going his way. Things have become so muddled for the Rangers that General Manager Chris Drury released a statement to the fans regarding the team’s direction. 

While the Canucks aren’t doing any better — worse, in fact — New York’s season clearly hasn’t gone the way they’ve wanted it to with Miller as part of their core. 

While it was clear that Miller was the big fish in this trade for the Rangers, New York likely would have hoped to get something else from the two other players coming their way. Dorrington remains part of the organization, spending the entirety of this season with the Hartford Wolf Pack in the AHL and scoring a goal and six assists in 37 games. 

Though Dorrington could join the Rangers at a later point in his career, it looks as though Brännström and New York have parted ways for the foreseeable future. The defenceman, who was unable to crack a steady stream of minutes with the Canucks, did not end up playing in any games for the Rangers before being traded to the Buffalo Sabres at the deadline. During the 2025 off-season, Brännström signed a three-year deal with Lausanne HC of the Swiss National League. Brännström had a goal and three assists in six games with the Wolf Pack as well as five goals and two assists with the Rochester Americans. 

The Canucks knew they needed one thing in return when they made the decision to trade Miller; a bona-fide second-line centre. In theory, they definitely got that with Chytil. Where things get complicated, however, is the fact that Chytil has only played in a total of 21 games with Vancouver since being traded. Two bouts of injuries have sidelined the Canucks centre for extended periods of time, with the first taking him out for the rest of the 2024–25 season, and the other resulting in him only just resuming regular practice skating this week. 

When he’s been healthy, Chytil has delivered on his promises for the Canucks. The forward found the back of the net in his first game for Vancouver and came to training camp with a determination to prove to the organization that he could be the second-line centre they were looking for. Prior to his injury on October 19, it looked as though Chytil would be a massive wild card for Vancouver, having scored three goals in his first six games of the season. Yet, again, it was a bad case of injury history that resulted in the Canucks not quite getting the return they’d hoped for in Chytil. 

This trade tree extends when you take a look at what the Canucks did with the Rangers’ first-round pick. Shipped to the Pittsburgh Penguins alongside Danton Heinen, Vincent Desharnais, and Melvin Fernström, the first-round pick fetched the Canucks Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor — both of whom signed extensions within their first month in Vancouver. While the 2025–26 season hasn’t been the kindest to Pettersson, it’s shown the team that their acquisition of O’Connor has paid off. 

As one of the forwards who seems to never take a night off, O’Connor has been one of the standouts in a bleak season for Vancouver. With 12 goals and seven points in 50 games, O’Connor has put up points at a surprisingly consistent pace for the Canucks. When he isn’t producing offensively, he’s been skating hard, getting to the net, and killing penalties on a regular basis. Surprisingly enough, he’s also tied for third on his team in 5-on-5 points. O’Connor has brought a level of speed and energy to the team that will be necessary now that they’ve moved on from Kiefer Sherwood. 

A right-shot defensive prospect, Mancini had fans excited when he was announced as part of Vancouver and New York’s deal. While injuries resulted in him flip-flopping from Vancouver to the Abbotsford Canucks throughout the final part of the 2024–25 regular season, as a young player, Mancini still played well enough to have management call him up at various points. The defenceman was then re-assigned to Abbotsford in time for the Calder Cup Playoffs, where he put up three goals and five assists in the AHL Canucks’ championship run. 

Heading into the 2025–26 season, Mancini had his eyes on a full-time roster spot — and many could tell that he did. The defenceman played in a way that almost forced Canucks management to consider him for the seventh-defenceman spot that many believed belonged to Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Despite being sent-down to Abbotsford after Vancouver’s final round of roster cuts, an injury to Joseph resulted in Mancini returning to Vancouver and ultimately starting the season with the team. 

Unfortunately for Mancini, even with his hot start to the season, the defenceman sustained an injury in late October that took him out and resulted in him returning to the AHL. He has been called up at various points throughout the season since, but has often been caught making misplays. More time in the AHL will help Mancini develop his game further while giving him a chance at bigger minutes. 

Had the Canucks had Chytil fully healthy throughout the past 82 games, Vancouver would have won this trade outright as of now. However, without him, the question becomes a bit tougher to answer. Another complicated aspect to this is the fact that the first-round pick was added to a package to acquire Pettersson and O’Connor. While you could argue that neither player was worth a first-round pick alone at the time, it also wouldn’t be fair to equate the pick to the value of both players. 

If using just O’Connor as a roughly approximated value gauge for the first-round pick, simply based on his performance this season compared to Pettersson’s, Vancouver gets the slight edge in terms of the trade’s success. While Miller is still the overall better player compared to what the Canucks got back in return, Vancouver has retained nearly all of the assets they acquired from this deal. Mancini looks to be an organizational staple in the coming years, O’Connor has performed well both offensively and defensively throughout this season, and Chytil has brought speed to the lineup when he’s been in. Because of this, Vancouver currently gets the slight edge over the Rangers in this deal — but not by very much. 

Although, both teams are still currently at the bottom of the league, so one could argue that they’ve both lost for the time being. 

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