In a practice on Wednesday morning, a couple of Vancouver Canucks forwards got in a scuffle. This isn’t out of the ordinary for teammates to get in a shoving match, but it normally happens when the team is on a losing streak, not after winning three straight games. And it usually doesn’t involve your two best forwards.

Jeff Paterson shared the details of practice, in which JT Miller and Elias Pettersson had a brief but testy exchange involving chopping each other with their sticks that ended with Miller cross-checking Pettersson.

On his Friday episode of 32 Thoughts – The Podcast, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared what he’s hearing was the cause of the scuffle and what he’s hearing regarding Elias Pettersson’s start to the season.

“I just find it really interesting that we’re basically two and a half weeks into the season, and tempers seem really short, really short. They’ve had some bad results, but generally, I think they’re pretty good. They just came out of their road trip really nicely, with a couple of really good games.

“Do you want to hear my theory? Do you know the difference between sales and service? Sales is we want your business, so we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you in here. Service is after we’ve signed you, eh, we don’t need you as much. Everything is great when it’s sales, everything is much harder when it’s service.

“I think this is sales and service on Pettersson. Last year was, ‘We’ve got to get this guy to sign. We want this over with, we want a commitment, we want Pettersson, or we’re moving on.’ Remember when I sat down with him last summer? He said he never thought he was going to get traded. I think there were people in the organization that were ready to do it, but as Pettersson said at the end of the day, he was going to sign, so he wasn’t concerned about it.

“So the Canucks got their sales done, Pettersson signs eight years, $11.6 million, he’s a Canuck, he’s a great talent. Now, we’re in service. Even though the Canucks signed Pettersson, I think they felt there was another level – or two levels – that they felt they needed to get him to. I think it was felt that as great as he is, they needed him to be tougher. I don’t know if meaner’s the right word, but tougher. Some people are not wired that way. But I think they felt he was wired that way and is wired that way, but they have to encourage him to get there.

“And, what I also believe is that they didn’t want it to be up to [Jim] Rutherford or [Patrik] Allvin or [Rick] Tocchet to do it. They really believe in their leadership group; they believe that [Quinn] Hughes is a strong captain, and they believe that Miller is a strong alternate captain and that their group is a strong group. They said, ‘You guys are the ones who have to do it.’ Miller’s obviously taking that very literally. In that practice, I think there’s been talks off the ice, but I think Hughes is involved too. I just think Hughes would take that so seriously, as a responsibility of his. I think you’re insane if you don’t think he’s trying to do that, too.

“Now, I think there are limits. You can’t go too far. But we’ve seen [Jim] Montgomery push [Brad] Marchand, we’ve seen [Craig] Berube push the [Toronto] Maple Leafs, I think the Canucks see it as; it might work for Pettersson if it comes from his teammates as opposed to the coach or the GM. I think what the Canucks have said to their leadership group is, ‘Elias needs to get to another level, you all see it, and we want you guys to get him there.’ And I think they see it, they understand it, and they’re trying to push him there. I think the message comes harder from some guys – Miller – as opposed to other guys – like Hughes. But I think that’s the goal here. They feel that tough love is the way.

“There’s a couple of other things at play. I don’t think he [Pettersson] always likes it. I think they’re hoping he will understand that it’s to make them win, but I don’t think we always likes it. I don’t know how serious it is, but I don’t think he’s 100%. I can’t answer that in terms of what percentage he’s at; I think it’s a factor. The biggest thing I think he feels is, I think a lot of players prefer when the constructive criticism comes down the chain of command, whether it’s management or coach, you don’t always like it when it’s your teammates because your teammates are supposed to have your back.

“The last podcast, we talked about him being on social media too much. Well, someone called me and said you didn’t go far enough. His friends are sending him stuff and telling him stuff. That is the worst. The worst. If you’re a friend of Pettersson’s, and you’re sending him clips or transcripts saying this guy said something about you, stop doing that. You’re not being a good friend. That makes the problem worse; he doesn’t need that.

“At the end of the day, the goal here from the Canucks is, if this guy can get a little bit of a thicker skin, he’s going to be unstoppable. We need to push him to be that player. You can’t go too far; there are lines you cannot cross, but this is what the Canuks are really trying to do.”