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While the NHL can’t match the NBA when it comes to blockbuster trades, it generated considerable buzz in the past week.

The Vancouver Canucks addressed the J.T. Miller-Elias Pettersson feud by returning Miller to the New York Rangers, thus giving fans in the Big Apple hope that this season can be salvaged.

Miller is an elite two-way forward who will add some much-needed bite to a very talented team. He is locked into a seven-year, $56 million contract, and he is well worth the trade price (Filip Chytil and a first-round draft pick) to a big-market team desperate to return to postseason play.

The Canucks ended their internal drama and gained the long-term salary cap space to build around Pettersson and Quinn Hughes. But that franchise made the trade under duress and didn’t get a great return, especially because it sent the draft pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for rental defenseman Marcus Pettersson.

The San Jose Sharks, on the other hand, got a fabulous return while sending forward Mikael Granlund and defenseman Cody Ceci to the injury-depleted Dallas Stars for a first-round pick and a conditional third-round pick.

Neither Granlund nor Ceci fit the retooling in San Jose. While Granlund is a skilled veteran who put up numbers with prime usage by the Sharks, he is no J.T. Miller.

And Ceci? He’s just a guy, one who went to the Sharks as a contract dump. The fact the Sharks could move him reminds Blues general manager Doug Armstrong that he will get some calls ahead of the trade deadline if other playoff-bound teams suffer injury hits on the blue line.

Stars general manager Jim Nill needed help right now, not closer to the trade deadline, and he was willing to spend a late first-round pick to keep his team rolling toward a potentially deep playoff run.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Flyers’ rebuild will drag on with coach John Tortorella burning up young veterans. That franchise gave up on forwards Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee, gifting them to the Calgary Flames for two players unlikely to flourish under Torts (Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier), plus second- and seventh-round picks.

Frost, 25, will be a restricted free agent this summer. He will almost certainly re-up in Calgary while looking to reestablish himself, as his production has slipped since his 19-goal, 27-assist season in 2022-23.

Farabee, 24, is halfway into a six-year, $30 million contract. He produced 22 goals and 28 assists last season for the Flyers before falling out of favor with Torts.

Freed from Tortorella’s tyranny, these two could help Flames general manager Craig Conroy execute a quick retool.

During the next few years, these are the sorts of young veterans the Blues need to track while looking to add to their mix.

Here is what folks have been writing about all of this:

• RYAN S. CLARK, : “The Rangers might be many things this season. Boring sure isn’t one of them. They traded their captain Jacob Trouba. They moved on from the one-time No. 2 pick in the draft (Kaapo Kakko) who was thought to be one of the future faces of the franchise. Now they have acquired one of the most coveted players more than a month ahead of the NHL trade deadline. ... Miller provides the Rangers with another dimension they were lacking within their top nine. He probably could find a place in the top six either as a winger or somewhere down the middle.

“Either way, he creates possibilities that they just didn’t have before. Miller gives them another two-way forward they could pair with Vincent Trocheck on the first line. Or he could be paired on the wing with Mika Zibanejad on the second line. But those aren’t the only options. There’s also the possibility the Rangers could play Miller down the middle to create a dynamic that has him, Trocheck and Zibanejad anchoring their top three lines. That’s one dimension. What he offers from an offensive consistency standpoint is another.�

• SEAN MCINDOE, The Athletic: “The Canucks finally close the book on the long-running Miller vs. Elias Pettersson saga that apparently was not all made up by the media after all. In return, they essentially get Chytil and Marcus Pettersson, two good players with significant question marks. For Chytil, it’s his health, with a long history of concussions hanging over what should be a bright future. For Pettersson, it’s his status as a pending UFA, and the Shiny New Toy Potential of the contract the Canucks will now presumably have to give him.

“Is essentially trading a 100-point player for two question marks a good move? Well … yeah, I actually think it might be. I’m more bullish on this move from Vancouver’s perspective than others seem to be. While the old cliché about addition by subtraction is usually nonsense, it’s fair to say that getting Miller out of town is probably a good thing for the Canucks, or at least a necessary one. And remember, as good as he’s been in recent years, this is a guy signed to an $8 million deal that runs until he’s 37. Even with the cap jumping up, that has the potential to be an ugly contract fairly soon.�

• RYAN DIXON, ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵnet: “With the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off hiatus hitting in seven days, there’s sort of a Trade Deadline Part 1 vibe to the market right now. The Canucks, after dealing Miller, swooped in and grabbed one of the top rental D-men on the market in former Penguin Marcus Pettersson. Then Dallas quietly went about its business by grabbing middle-six contributor Mikael Granlund and — from the always-scarce right-shot defenseman pool — Cody Ceci from San Jose.

“With Pettersson now gone, and Ivan Provorov playing on a Blue Jackets team that presently holds a wild card spot, you wonder how things might shake out in what is now a pretty thin market for defensemen. Could a team look at Seth Jones and try to shake him loose? You must get the player — who holds a full no-move clause — on board, plus offer Chicago sufficient prospect/player capital, to convince the Hawks to eat enough salary for three-plus seasons to make Jones sensible on your books.�

• RYAN LAMBERT, Elite Prospects: “Not that I expect the Stars’ first-rounder to be lower than, like, 20th or so, but Dallas just burned a big chunk of the cap space they got when Tyler Seguin’s regular season ended, taking on $8.25 million to bring in two guys who haven’t been particularly good this season, albeit in tough circumstances on a very bad team. The Stars’ defense is such that even Ceci and his 37.5-percent xGF share might be an upgrade ... but Granlund has at least been extremely productive (because the Sharks didn’t have anyone better to put on their power play).

“Because there are so few teams that are clearly willing to sell at this point, it turns out you gotta give up a first and a later-round pick to get two guys who might not move the needle that much for you, without salary retention. Tough stuff for the Stars, but they wanted an upgrade and, they would say, got one. As for the Sharks, they got out from under two not-so-good contracts without retaining (because they couldn’t) and still wrangled a first? Very nice for them, especially because it feels like they still have more to give up.�

Megaphone

“I feel responsible that we’ve had the turmoil that we’ve had, and I want to, you know, be the reason that we can get out of this and be successful.�

Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes.