The New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks, two teams in the midst of disappointing seasons, swung a big trade Friday night they hope will shake things up for the better.
Vancouver shipped center J.T. Miller along with Erik Brannstrom and Jackson Dorrington to the Rangers in exchange for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini and a conditional first-round pick in the 2025 draft, the teams announced. The pick is top-13 protected, according to multiple reports.
Who won the deal? Here are trade grades for both sides:
Vancouver Canucks trade grade
Grade: C
You’re never going to win a trade when you’re the team sending the clear best player in the deal out of town. But in many ways, the Canucks had little choice — one of Miller or Elias Pettersson had to go.
The rift that exists between the two forwards and the non-stop drama that’s created has consumed all the oxygen around the team this season and seemingly had a negative impact on Vancouver’s play on the ice. Both Pettersson and Miller, each with a 100-point season under their belts, are under a point per game this year after clearing that plateau last season. This regression from Vancouver’s two highest-paid forwards is part of the reason a Canucks team that won the division last year entered Friday one point back of a playoff spot.
Perhaps the decision was made for them in that Pettersson’s $11.6 million average annual value is just harder to move than Miller’s $8 million mark, but the decision to keep Pettersson feels like the right one if for no other reason than this: Miller will turn 32 in March while Pettersson is only 26.
As for the players the Canucks get back: Chytil, 25, is a former first-round pick who hasn’t really ever developed into anything beyond a depth option (although that may be a Rangers problem). Mancini is a 22-year-old defenseman who has played 15 NHL games.
The first-round pick didn’t stay in the Canucks’ hands long: They shipped it to the Pittsburgh Penguins later Friday night in a separate deal, along with Danton Heinen, Vincent Desharnais and Melvin Fernstrom. They got back Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor.
New York Rangers trade grade
Grade: B
Can Miller help the Rangers make a run? After winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2023-24 and reaching the Eastern Conference finals again, the Broadway Blueshirts have been among the most disappointing teams in the league this season, sitting just 24-22-4 and five points out of a playoff spot entering Friday.
The falloff of centers Mika Zibanejad (29 points in 50 games) and Vincent Trocheck (32 points in 50 games) after both had 70-point seasons last year is at least part of the problem. Miller should slot in ahead of them on the depth chart.
Miller, a Rangers first-round pick in 2011 who spent the first five-plus seasons of his career with the franchise, is an even better player than the one who left New York in 2018 as part of the Ryan McDonagh trade. He put up 437 points in 404 games for the Canucks after joining the team in 2019 and had a career-high 103 points last season.
The biggest problem for the Rangers: he doesn’t come cheap. Miller is signed through the 2029-30 season, and the Canucks did not retain any money, meaning the Rangers assume his full cap hit. The Rangers have a lot of money committed to players over 30 years old. This is a win-now move, so it won’t matter too much if the Rangers win it all the next few seasons … but if they don’t, there figures to be a lot of pain, even with a salary cap that’s expected to go up.
It was smart business to add pick protections to their first-round selection in case things continue to go sideways.
This story has been updated with new information.
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