Canucks mailbag: Can Filip Hronek carry his own pairing? Fans want to know

Filip Hronek is close to a return.

And when he does, will he end up back as Quinn Hughes’ partner, or might he be tasked with running his own pairing? The Canucks desperately need strong play from a defence line that doesn’t have Hughes on it — especially since the centre who has not been playing with Hughes has not been playing well.

Want to understand Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller’s uneven seasons better? Look at how they have played without Hughes.

When either is paired with Hughes, the Canucks are getting about 58 per cent of the shot attempts, which is Hughes’ overall rate no matter who he’s playing with.

But when either has been away from Hughes, they are both seeing the Canucks control just 45 per cent of the shot attempts.

Need Hronek to show he can carry a pairing on his own. So far, I’m hesitant to think he can. It’ll be an even bigger task coming back from injury.

— Sandro Desaulniers via BlueSky

This is the big thing about this premise, of course. Hronek away from Hughes doesn’t have much to suggest it would work. Hronek has spent about a quarter of his Canucks’ career playing five-on-five minutes away from Hughes, and the Canucks have taken just 44 per cent of the shot attempts when it’s just him on the ice.

But it does deserve a run to see if it would work nonetheless — playing for the not-very-good Detroit Red Wings, he posted a 46 per cent shot attempt for percentage in the 2.5 seasons before joining the Canucks.

And if it doesn’t work, well the Canucks bosses can just get back to their pursuit of a top-four defenceman that they have been on the last year or so.

Used to be Miller vs. Horvat, now it’s Miller vs Petey. Is Jimothy (J.T. Miller) actually the problem?

— Buzz Bishop via BlueSky

Let’s be clear here: There was never anything between Miller and Bo Horvat. The only adversarial pairing was by management, who decided (rightly) they couldn’t have both players unless they each took big discounts, and that wasn’t going to happen.

Miller and Horvat were very close when they were teammates.

It’s well understood that Pettersson and Miller are not. Certainly there have been some tense moments — Brad Richardson’s characterization of the relationship is pretty spot on according to anyone who has been around it behind the scenes.

Has it reached unmanageable levels? I guess we’ll find out. Either there’s a trade, then the answer is yes. Or there’s not, and the answer is no.

For all the good Miller does on the ice, it is apparent he is not the locker room guy everyone makes him out to be. Traded twice, had issues with previous players that are not here anymore. Every time strong locker room guys are gone there are issues. Tanev, Markstrom, Schenn, Cole. Perhaps he’s the issue.

— canucks72 via BlueSky

That two previous teams said that they were fine moving on from a guy as talented as Miller is notable. The Rangers were crashing and burning and were ready to trade Ryan McDonagh to begin a quick and dirty rebuild. Miller was obviously not seen as part of their future core and trading him to Tampa netted the Rangers a grab bag of additional options.

Then a year later, the Lightning, facing a cap crunch again decided that Miller was a player they could accept moving on from.

So it’s not exactly a question of a player who was a guy they had to get rid of, but he was obviously down the list of priorities. Twice.

That the room is unbalanced again is a thing, though, a couple of sources told me this last week. Ian Cole and Nikita Zadorov last season were big influences in the room, for instance.

Interesting argument about the inducement-to-sign argument from John Tavares and Co. in their signing-bonus taxation court case against the CRA. I don’t see how anyone could think that that would cover anything other than the initial signing bonus, though. Feels like any subsequent bonuses are basically just salary at that point.

— danmaynard89 via BlueSky

The big question here is pretty much, “When is a signing bonus a signing bonus?” and the players’ case has pretty much been “look at the label” and the CRA has said, “No, look at the function.”

An ex-NHL exec I’ve spoken to thinks the players are going to lose, that it is obvious what these bonuses are — merely an effort to say a certain portion of their wage should be taxed in a particular way compared to the rest.

pjohnston@postmedia.com