Canucks: Simmer's Sunday 9; Media Hate, Miller & Pettersson

Canucks Drama

Wow, that week went fast …

1) So is it real drama or is it manufactured? Rob Williams breached the Pettersson/Miller potential feud topic with us this week.

J.T. Miller after practice on Sunday …

2) Miller has publicly expressed his dislike for the local media before, but I think it’s Elias Pettersson who actually has more ire. The quiet Swede seems to internalize it, putting up with it many times in the past when asked about his “struggles”. Saturday night postgame he ran out of patience with the Miller topic …

3) As you heard from Miller, the struggles on-ice are real, and he and the club are trying to work through them. Miller has two assists over his last five games and took responsibility for the OT loss against the Senators.

‘Petey’ is pointless in six straight games and seven of his last eight.

4) The Canucks power play is 1-for-11 over the last five games, a fact that contributes to the offensive dismay. Vancouver has been outshot, often dramatically, in seven of their last nine games.

5) I’ve recently been covering games from the press boxes of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Seattle Kraken, where I’ve been a regularly credentialed beat writer for 3 seasons, but I’m still not allowed to cover games at Rogers Arena. That includes as a visiting team beat reporter, a breach of standard NHL protocol and courtesy. (I did cover the entire 2021-’22 Canucks season, 2022 training camp, and was banned a day before the season opener).

Clearly, a couple of dishonest media members, who benefit the most from my absence competitively, are in cahoots with a vengeful PR director who has lied about the situation more often than not, and therefore my suspension has almost reached 2-and-a-half seasons.

Most miraculously, I still haven’t been given a reason.

I believe former Islanders PR guy Chris Botta was banned from covering that same club after he left the position a couple of decades ago, but I don’t recall why or whether it was sour grapes or legitimate. So I reckon I have the 2nd longest suspension/ban in NHL history.

Just how twisted and unprofessional this has become, is the subject of an upcoming story.

6) Canucks trivia time: (answer at bottom) Who’s the only NHL player from the 2018 draft to have more points than Quinn Hughes at this point?

7) The Canucks neighbours to the south, the Seattle Kraken, have begun slip sliding away. They’re three games below .500, seven points behind 4th place Vancouver in the Pacific Division and 15 behind the 1st place Vegas Golden Knights.

I was asked when guesting on a radio show a couple days ago about the rivalry between Vancouver and Seattle and unfortunately the answer was disappointing. As much as we’d love to see a consistent hate-fest between the two, both have to be “good” for a sustained period of time before the regional ire begins to peak. There’s been a few moments along the way, but we’re just not there yet.

The Kraken play their final game before the holiday break on Sunday evening against the Colorado Avalanche in Denver, a place where the visitors from Washington state have had surprising success in the past.

8) I believe I’ll be elaborating more on this at a later date, but how f’ing ridiculous is it that the radio broadcasters for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Foster Hewitt Award recognized play-by-play man Joe Bowen and colour commentator Jim Ralph, aren’t allowed to travel. Not just with the team on the charter, but at all. They call the games from monitors at a studio in Toronto.

So much for being able to describe what’s going on behind the play, on the bench, or anywhere else for that matter while looking at a screen. Absolute horseshit, from media companies and an ownership group MLSE, that cleared 100’s of millions of dollars in profit last year. Billion-plus maybe?

9) Find videos like the one below, and ones way more serious, at my simmerpuck channel at youtube. Follow on twitter/X @simmerpuck.

Thank you and Enjoy the Hockey Action!!

Trivia answer: Forward Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators has 382 points to “Huggy’s” 373.