Ex-Vancouver Canucks general manager Brian Burke offered up his thoughts regarding any issues between Elias Pettersson and JT Miller. Here is everything Burke, who served two stints with the Canucks’ front office, had to say about the Canucks’ star players on today’s episode of The Sheet with Jeff Marek:

Marek: Speaking of USA and Sweden, there’s one American player on Vancouver and one Swedish player on Vancouver who can’t seem to get along. And it’s gone from whispers behind the scenes to coaches talking about it, to former coaches talking about it, to general managers giving interviews about it, to former teammates commenting on it as well, despite denials from both the participants, JT Miller and Elias Patterson. Now very specific to this is the Vancouver market, which you know very well. If you were running the Vancouver Canucks right now and again, you know the city, you know the people, you know the organization, the meaning behind the logo, and all of it. How would you handle this situation? Let’s begin there, because I’m guessing you’ve had situations like this before on some of your teams.

Burke: Yeah, I have, everyone has. I played for a championship team in Maine, we didn’t all get along. You talk about playing Playstation, we didn’t even eat dinner together some of us. We didn’t all get along, but we won a Calder Cup together. You don’t have to get along, you just gotta respect each other as players. So to me, the shocking part of this is not that there’s discord or friction. The shocking part of this is that it’s this public. This is wrong. This is not stuff that supposed to be aired publicly. This has gone too far. The people involved, you know, the coach has tried to calm this down, the GM’s tried to calm this down, Jimmy Rutherford has tried to calm this down. It’s still out there. It’s gone too far. I blame the players involved for letting it get this far. But this is not anything unusual. This is routine for a hockey club. What is not routine is how the broadcasting of it has been.

Marek: Listen, I’ve heard these whispers, as I’m sure you have, going back a couple of years…But the one thing that I wonder about here is because Rick Tocchet has talked about it recently. Patrik Allvin has talked about it recently. You know, there was a moment where Rick Tocchet separated them on the power play, as if to prove the point that this looks ridiculous. Like, do you think that there’s a part of all of this where management and the coach have gotten together and said, like, look, this isn’t getting any better, maybe if we publicly shame them, — because Rick Tocchet has even said [to media] hey, why don’t you get these guys? Why don’t you request the players and ask them about it? Don’t ask me about it. Like, is there an element of the organization saying, this isn’t getting any better — maybe if we just air it all out, it’ll shame them into fixing this issue?

Burke: Yes, I think that’s clear. You’re talking about very impatient people. Jimmy Rutherford is an impatient guy. That’s why he’s successful. He would have called them in and said, ‘You got to fix this.’ Somebody would have called both players in. I would have called the players in separately and said, ‘I’m not trading anyone. You two sort this out.’ I would have had them in separately then brought them in together and say, ‘you want to grab a case of beer somewhere and go drink beer and solve it, do it that way? You want to fight? You want to go after each other in practice and fight? Solve it that way. Let’s solve it, fix it. I’m sick of hearing about it. And Patrik Allvin would have done the same thing. Jimmy would have done the same thing. It’s not working. So now the best thing is, shame them into making it work and see if you can move on. The good thing is teams have distractions too. A fight will happen where players rally around the team. Something will happen that will get the team to rally around them and forget about this. But right now, it’s a major problem.

Marek: I’m with you. Not to sound like, like some kind of shaved ape… but once upon a time, these two guys would roll up their sleeves and settle it, and then it would be done. It would be over, and it would be done with and everybody would just move along. But there’s a sort of generation gap between these two as well. Very, very different personalities… I actually like when veteran players get on younger players and push them to be better, and things like in practice, finishing checks, all types of things that involve the game. But it seems, in this case, you listen to Brad Richardson talking about JT running Elias Patterson real hot when Brad Richardson was on the on the Vancouver Canucks. It seems as if this was more than just expectations of the player on the ice, which leads me to believe, if they can’t get this thing settled, do they have to trade one or the other?

Burke: That’s a last resort. At some point, it’ll come to that. You’re talking big contracts on guys, and because of the attention, are underperforming. You’re not going to get full value right now. Elias Patterson is not going to fight JT Miller to do it, someone else will have to do it. Someone will have to grab JT after practice and say, ‘I’m sick of this garbage. Let’s sort it out now. You’re too big for this guy, you’re too good a fighter, but I’m not. Lets sort it out that way.’ That might be what it needs to be, some trial by combat thing that sorts it out. That might be what happens. You’re right. When I played, we would fight to solve this, and it’s not a good method of resolving disputes, I know, and I know a lot of people are scratching their heads saying ‘did he just say they should fight?’… I remember in my first training camp in Providence, I fought a guy who was a junior, much bigger than I was, tough as nails. Had a great fight, we’ve been friends ever since. First time I met Paul Holmgren, I fought him, we’ve been friends ever since. So sometimes that’s exactly what you need to do.

Burke went on to talk about his love for the Vancouver market, Quinn Hughes’s phenomenal season, and more. You can watch the full replay of today’s edition of The Sheet with Jeff Marek, a member of The Nation Network’s family of shows, below!