Vancouver Canucks forward J.T. Miller reportedly called Elias Pettersson a 'baby' following their scuffle at practice on Wednesday.
A brief scuffle occurred on Wednesday at Vancouver Canucks practice between forwards J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. The incident happened after a drill, with two chopping at each other, while Miller cross-checked Pettersson.
'brief but testy exchange between JT Miller & Elias Pettersson at #Canucks practice. End of a battle drill, two chopped at each other and then Miller delivered a quick cross check. A few words were exchanged. Wasn't any bigger than that. But it definitely looked like it had some heat. The two then went their separate ways. Didn't escalate to point coaches or teammates had to intervene.' - Jeff Paterson said.
On Thursday, TSN's Farhan Lalji was a guest on Donnie & Dhali with Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal where he shared a bit more insight into the scuffle between the Canucks forward.
Lalji shared that J.T. Miller reportedly called Elias Pettersson a baby after the scuffle and the two skated away.
'Yeah, I didn't see it, but I did hear about it. It wasn't just the scuffle, but it was the words after where Miller allegedly called Pettersson a baby at the end of it.' Lalji said.He later went on to add, 'For my money, I think this is just what happens in a practice between guys, it happens on every team all the time, so I don't want to read too much into it. Again, I know why. Everybody wants to say 'Pettersson's making huge money now and making significantly more than Miller and Miller's going to be upset if he's not carrying his weight' and all of that stuff. But I just don't believe they think about those things in the moment and sometimes things get heated and it happens and I'm sure Tocchet is right that the next time these two are in a situation where one needs to come to the defence of the other, they'll be there for one another.'
It's going to be interesting to see how both Miller and Pettersson respond on Saturday night, especially the latter who has struggled to start the season and is still without a goal. Maybe this scuffle with a teammate is the spark Pettersson needs to get back on track and hopefully, he'll be able to find the back of the net against Pittsburgh on Saturday.
