The Canucks’ 1986 Cam Neely trade is instructive when pondering J.T. Miller

With trade talk continuing to dominate the offseason conversation around the Vancouver Canucks, this nugget jumped out at me as I opened up the Twitter machine on Monday morning:

Hard to believe it’s been 36 years, but that really was a trade that changed the course of the Canucks franchise. And it does bear some similarities to Jim Benning’s 2019 deal to acquire J.T. Miller, at a time when Vancouver probably wasn’t ready to push in its trade chips.

First — a lengthy look at the Neely trade tree, which is STILL bearing fruit for the Bruins to this day.

Like Benning, then-Vancouver general manager Jack Gordon also went out on a limb in 1986, making a win-now trade at that particular moment in Canucks history. After their surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1982, the Canucks settled back into their usual position near the bottom of the Smythe Division standings. But they still stayed in the playoff picture, at a time when 16 of 21 teams qualified for the postseason.

After 1982, Vancouver lost two best-of-five first-round series to the Calgary Flames, then missed the playoffs in 1985. That led to Harry Neale’s dismissal.

In Gordon’s first season, the Canucks finished with 59 points for the second-straight year — tying them with the Winnipeg Jets, but in the playoffs thanks to a 54-point year from Pat Quinn’s Los Angeles Kings.

Unsurprisingly, the Canucks were promptly swept by the Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers. And with that, Gordon decided to ship out a promising young player AND a first-round pick in exchange for Pederson.

He had a good pedigree — a first-round pick himself, who had put up two 100-plus point seasons. And while Pederson was only 25, he had already missed most of the 1984-85 season due to injury, then come back with a modest-for-him 79 points before he was traded.

Back in those days, the formula for player personnel decisions wasn’t as entrenched as it is today. Not only was there no salary cap — player salaries weren’t even publicly disclosed. Multi-player trades were not uncommon — and of course, this was only a couple of years before Wayne Gretzky’s move to Los Angeles affirmed that literally anybody could be dealt, if circumstances required it.

Still — I remember a sense of concern among the fanbase from the moment the deal was made. And it’s pretty incredible that the trade went down on Neely’s 21st birthday. (Happy 57th, Cam!)

You know the details, of course. After three seasons in Vancouver, where he peaked with 21 goals and 39 points, Neely broke out as a top power forward in Boston. Despite injury issues, he logged three 50-goal seasons, was a four-time All Star, and led the NHL in game-winning goals in two different seasons. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005, but didn’t get his Stanley Cup until 2011, as Bruins president.

The first-round pick became defenseman Glen Wesley. He played 1,457 career NHL games over 20 years, the first seven of which were in Boston. The Bruins went to the Stanley Cup Final in two of Wesley’s first three seasons — losing to Edmonton both times — and made the playoffs in all seven of Wesley’s seasons with the team.

The trade tree then extended when Wesley was traded to the Hartford Whalers in 1994 in exchange for three first-round draft picks — in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

In ’95, the Bruins selected Kyle McLaren, who played seven seasons on the Boston blue line before being traded to San Jose in 2003.

In ’96, Boston used the eighth-overall pick to select defenseman Jonathan Aitken, who managed just three games with the Bruins in the 1999-2000 season before departing for Europe. He did come back to play 41 games with Chicago in 2003-04.

By ’97, the Whalers had relocated to Carolina. Once again, they held the eight-overall pick, which Boston used to select forward Sergei Samsonov.

With 47 points in 81 games in the dead-puck era, the exciting Samsonov won the 1998 Calder Trophy. He was in his eighth season in Boston when he was traded to Edmonton at the 2006 deadline in exchange for players Marty Reasoner and Yan Stastny — and the second-round draft pick that the Bruins used to select…Milan Lucic!

So on the Boston side, Neely’s 36-year trade tree is still alive to this day. The Bruins, of course, traded Lucic to Los Angeles in 2015, receiving Martin Jones, Colin Miller and the first-round draft pick they used to draft Jakub Zboril. Then, they flipped Jones to San Jose for Sean Kuraly and the first-round pick they used to draft Trent Frederic in 2016.

Frederic took a step forward as an important part of the Bruins team this year. Zboril, now 25, played 42 games with the Bruins last season, but was limited to just 10 games this year due to a knee injury. Kuraly spent five years in Boston before signing as a free agent with Columbus last summer. And Colin Miller spent two years in Boston before being claimed by Vegas in the 2017 expansion draft.

On the Canucks’ side, Pat Quinn traded Pederson to Pittsburgh on Jan. 8, 1990, as part of a six-player deal that was a key part of the organization’s re-tool that set it up for success in the early 90s. Tony Tanti and Rod Buskas were also sent to the Penguins, in exchange for Dave Capuano, Andrew McBain and Dan Quinn.

Capuano played 88 games for Vancouver and was in the minors when he was traded in November of 1992 to the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning, along with a 1994 fourth-rounder, for forward Anatoli Semenov. He lasted one season in Vancouver, then was claimed by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the 1993 expansion draft.

McBain was a former first-rounder, but spent most of his time with the Canucks organization in the minors, playing just 19 games with Vancouver.

Quinn was the most useful player to come out of the deal, although his time in Vancouver was also short. He put up 49 points in 101 games before being packaged with Garth Butcher in the 1991 trade with the St. Louis Blues which brought Geoff Courtnall, Cliff Ronning, Sergio Momesso and Robert Dirk to Vancouver — and laid a big piece of the puzzle in place for the 1994 team that is getting some ink again right now, as memories of the Rangers’ Stanley Cup win bubble back to the surface.

There is only one small branch off this part of the trade tree, though. Courtnall and Ronning both left Vancouver as free agents. Dirk was traded for a player who never made the NHL. Momesso was traded for veteran Mike Ridley, who played 102 games with the Canucks before calling it a career.

Pulling this back to the present day — Miller was 26 when Benning acquired him in 2019, a year older than Pederson had been. He was coming off a disappointing season with the Lightning, but healthy.

Miller’s evolution as a player during his time in Vancouver has been light-years ahead of what Pederson delivered. But with the way the cards have fallen, he may also end up being most important as a trade chip that will bring back multiple assets.

As for the Lightning — they got what they needed out of the deal. Most crucially, they acquired the first-round pick that they were able to package with Nolan Foote and send to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for Blake Coleman. He was a critical piece of their two Stanley Cup runs before leaving in free agency.

Tampa Bay also acquired a third-round pick that they used to select Swedish goaltender Hugo Alnefelt. The 21-year-old made his North American debut this year, playing 23 games with the Syracuse Crunch, and even saw one period of NHL game action. Of course, it will likely be several years before we know how he turns out.

I still believe that Miller is an important part of the heartbeat of the current Canucks. But I can certainly see how age and cap constraints make it tempting to use him as trade bait, especially when he could bring in a significant return.

Looking at the Neely deal from the other side, it’s a stunning illustration of how, done right, a bet on potential can be parlayed to bear fruit across multiple hockey generations.