More and more it's clear what a remarkable fit J.T. Miller has been on Elias Pettersson's left wing.

Elias Pettersson says he’s still learning.

God help his future opponents. He’s a learning computer. His understanding of how hockey works at the NHL level is evolving, and so is his understanding of how his body is maturing, what he’s able to do physically as his body reaches its final form.

On top of him finishing off his own natural growth, he’s added strength. And of course he pushes himself mentally too.

It helps having a pair of linemates who truly understand how he sees the game.

J.T. Miller, he said after Saturday’s 4-1 win for the Vancouver Canucks over the Pittsburgh Penguins, teaches him things all the time. He’s the newest of the trio, one who often brings a fresh perspective.

“We use the boards a lot,” Pettersson said after Saturday’s game.

“Play hard,” he said his left winger will remind him. “Don’t be afraid if you don’t have a play.”

Miller’s always going to be an option down low, behind the net, even if they can’t see him, Pettersson went on.

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And on top of that, yes, he’s feeling evermore confident in his physical abilities.

In the first period, he took the puck around behind the net and shook off the attempt of a Pittsburgh defenceman to pile drive him into the boards, instead shrugging off the physical challenge and maintaining possession.

“I feel stronger, I feel more stable on the ice and I feel I can make those plays,” he said. “I feel comfortable taking a hit.”

The teaching moments can come at any time, Miller explained. Sometimes they’re on the bench right after a play.

Sometimes it’s just about general encouragement.

“That’s the new part of my game. I’m not young anymore in the National Hockey League and the guys I’m playing with, they’re much younger than me so when and where, it’s definitely something I’m working on,” Miller said. “I think that there’s times where for Petey especially, and Boes too, like it’s if they’re moving their feet and playing hard, that’s when stuff opens up and that’s what I was saying, it’s “we create the turnover, then use your skills, you don’t have to make something out of nothing. That goes for me too, I’ve played like that my whole career. I’ve learned a lot. Just the time and place, I think, is really important.”

The lessons are purely about his own aging in the NHL. It does, yes, seem a bit daft to say such a thing about a 26-year-old forward, but more and more this is a young man’s game.

“Yeah it takes a lot. I mean I’ve got a lot of times in my career where I’ve been bumped up and then bumped back down because I changed my game and that’s what I pride myself now, it doesn’t matter what line I’m on, I mean obviously I’m playing with them more often than not, but you need to have a guy going north-shout and you need to get pucks back. As I know, it’s easy to play on the outside, it’s easy to defend when you’re playing on the outside, so I know it works and I’m trying to help them, you know, it’s hard when you’re young you know how you want to play … and in the National Hockey League you’ve got to work your butt off to get the puck back.

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Both Boeser’s goal and Pettersson’s goals came from within 10 feet of the net, verging on the true greasy areas.

“We’ve been not getting many pucks there,” Boeser said.

“Most goals are scored there, in that box area.”

That goal

Boeser said he wasn’t surprised by Pettersson’s effort to collect the puck while leaning away from the net and then being able to fire the puck into the top corner.

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“Not many guys can pull that one off,” Miller said. “The velocity he got, it doesn’t really make any sense.

“I keep telling him I shoot harder than him but I don’t want to give him too much,” he added while wearing a big smile on his face. “But no, he’s obviously a special shooter with the puck. It’s pretty fun to watch.”

The no-goal

Travis Green admitted they were pretty sure the entry into the Pittsburgh zone that ended with an apparent J.T. Miller goal on the first-period 5 on 3 power play was offside.

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That said, Miller was hopeful it was going to count and then was looking to the heavens after it was ruled out.

“Oh this is just not my month, like for sure,” he said, grinning, about was what he was thinking at that point. He’d scored just one time in December after picking six goals in both November and October.

That he scored a few minutes later was a relief.

“It was nice to see one go in for sure.”

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The quiet side note on the disallowed goal: that would have been Quinn Hughes’ 25th assist of the season, which would’ve earned him his first Schedule A bonus on the season.

That luck

Asked about why it is he always scores against the Penguins, Brock Boeser grinned, chuckled, said something about playing against world-class players … and then dead-panned.

“Maybe it’s just luck.”

Matt Murray, no doubt, won’t argue.

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What’s up with Bo?

His line and Jay Beagle’s split the assignment of going up against Malkin and while Beagle’s did an outstanding job — he’s having quite the season, still limiting the opposition’s shot quality to a remarkable degree — Horvat didn’t fare so well. Scoring chances were 5-0 in favour of Malkin’s line when the two were on the ice, a rate of about one per minute, according to Natural Stat Trick.

With Horvat on the ice, the Canucks have been out-shot in four of the last five games, including three very heavily.

He’s struggling to get things going on offence *at home* which is never a good sign. Could he be fighting some injury?

Did you notice?

Jake Virtanen was out on the ice in the final minute. In a tighter game he probably isn’t; it’s surely the Beagle line, which continues to be lights-out in preventing quality shots against.

But with the team up 4-1, it was a bit of ego-boosting move by Green to put Virtanen out there.

Virtanen isn’t playing a ton, but he’s putting up points and you have to think, given the roster crunch looming this summer and the raise that Virtanen is lining himself up for, the Canucks could be again pondering finding him a new home via trade.

Photo by Anne-Marie Sorvin / USA TODAY Sports

Learning those lessons

Pre-game Boeser was honest: the infamous collapse against the Penguins last month was a brutal learning lesson.

“We could have played a little better,” he said about how he and his linemates did against Evgeni Malkin that night.

The Canucks were dealing with injuries to Beagle and Brandon Sutter that night, which meant that the Lotto Line saw a lot more of the opposition’s top forwards than they might be used to. It was a challenge that, in the future, Boeser wants to be one of the first players picked to protect a tight lead in a key moment.

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“We haven’t really been out there in those moments before,… but it’s something that we really want to take pride and we want to be those guys in the future that you can put out there against any line and shut it down.”

An opponent like Malkin, you can never take the foot off the gas.

“Especially against a future Hall of Famer. I mean, you saw know how he can take control of the game and just keep pressing. We want to be those guys out at the end of the game when we have leads. And we really take pride in winning hockey games and playing the right way.”

Photo by Mitchell Leff / Getty Images

Ride those buses

Zack MacEwen chuckled when I pointed out I seem to be asking for a weekly travel update.

It’s the third time in two weeks he’s been recalled from the Utica Comets to cover for an injury.

This time, he said, was a long day.

And so we return to the Utica-as-affiliate discussion.

Call-ups for the Canucks can be fraught with risk. In late October, Sven Baertschi had to stay overnight at O’Hare airport in Chicago after his flight out of Syracuse, the nearest airport to Utica, was delayed because of the rain storm of the century in upstate New York and then all connecting flights out of O’Hare were cancelled by the snow storm of the century.

Last year, Reid Boucher spent American Thanksgiving in Washington last year because of terrible weather. Earlier last season Alex Biega and Guillaume Brisebois were delayed getting to Arizona.

You get the point. There are plenty of call-ups that go swimmingly. We should note that.

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There are reasons to argue in favour of a west coast affiliate. There are plenty in California, as we know.

But there are caveats to California life. The bus trips can be long. Five or six hours in some cases. For comparison’s sake, the longest trip the Comets make is to Toronto and that’s five hours. Most of their bus trips are only a couple hours.

That’s a very nice thing, MacEwen pointed out to me. They’re spending little time, relatively speaking, on the bus and they do get a far bit of extra practice time on top of it.

Also, if you’re on the San Jose Barracuda, you’re playing in a city that’s very expensive to live in, while playing on a not-great wage. The standard AHL salary is $70,000, which goes a long way in upstate New York, not so far in Silicon Valley.

That’s life. Most of us had to struggle make a go of it in our early 20s, so this isn’t a case of complaining on their sake, but it is a note that things like that can matter. If you’re trying to carve out a career in the AHL, how far your dollar goes may be a factor in where you decide to play, even if the alternative to living in sunny San Diego, with its beaches and restaurants, is a small town with not much to do away from the rink.

(Side note: MacEwen said the bus when he was on the Moncton Wildcats was better than almost any bus he’s seen in the AHL, but the Gatineau bus, where he played his final season in the Q, was far worse.)

The final factor is one that is only just starting to develop. The Barracuda may play in an expensive city, but they also play in the same city as their parent club, which means the NHL club’s staff is able to see up close how their prospects are coming along. That’s a positive thing for the team, and it’s also for the players. They don’t feel forgotten.

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There’s no salary cap in the AHL, so teams are going to be spending more and more on their primary development team. The Toronto Marlies, for instance, have two buses. That’s unheard of in the AHL.

The Maple Leafs take their ECHL affiliation so seriously — a true standout from just about every other organization — that they fly some of their prospects with the ECHL Newfoundland Growlers back to Toronto during the week so they get further attention from the team’s top coaches.

The Rafferty Question

So Brogan Rafferty can dish the puck. This we know.

He can skate like the wind.

This we know.

Of course there will be work for him to do to improve his game. But he’s also 24. He’s pretty much what he’s going to be skill-wise. It’s whether he can handle the speed of the NHL game.

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At what point does it become time for him to get an NHL look? The Canucks are almost certainly not going to be able to keep both Chris Tanev and Troy Stecher next summer.

Tanev has stayed healthy this year. He remains a vital defensive force. He’s also now 30.

If he stays healthy, he’ll suddenly be back in vogue as a useful trade chip.

Two years ago, teams offered draft picks for him. One a late first-rounder.

Stecher isn’t Tanev, but he’s been a useful depth defender. He’s done well pinch-hitting in top pairing minutes too. Could he be an interesting trade chip himself?

Gotta figure out if Rafferty can play.