Miller led the Canucks in points (99) and assists (67), and tied Elias Pettersson for the team lead in goals (32) last season, but the 29-year-old can become an unrestricted free agent after this season. His contract has an average annual value of $5.25 million.
With the two sides thus far unable to agree on a contract extension, there has been trade speculation surrounding Miller in recent months, and it continued with the free agent market opening Wednesday.
"Well, I didn't get any calls today," Allvin said. "Hey, he was our best player last year. I think (president of hockey operations) Jim Rutherford] mentioned there has been teams kicking tires, checking in. It hasn't gone much further than that. We're really excited to have J.T. here for another year. I believe he's excited and ready to come back, and who knows, anything could happen over the next couple of weeks, months, but we're happy to have him back."
If Miller starts a fourth season with the Canucks, he will return to a team that looks different up front.
On Wednesday, Vancouver added forwards Ilya Mikheyev, who signed a four-year contract; Curtis Lazar, who agreed to a three-year contract; Andrei Kuzmnenko, who signed a one-year contract; and Dakota Joshua, who agreed to a two-year contract. Financial terms were not disclosed.
[RELATED: [2022 NHL Free Agent Tracker]
The moves add depth, speed and penalty-killing to a forward group that lacked all three, which was one reason Vancouver missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the sixth time in seven seasons. A defenseman group that also struggled, with Rutherford saying after the season that the Canucks' defensive-zone breakout was "probably one of the worst in the League," is unchanged for now.
Of improving on the blue line, Allvin said, "We talked about it as a group and realized there wasn't really anything on the market for us today to get into, so [there] probably will be over time. Maybe look into different options, trade scenarios, but again, I didn't feel we needed to rush into something here and take other options away from us here leading up to training camp."
Trading Miller could be one way to improve at defenseman, with the Canucks being tight to the NHL salary cap and yet to sign center and captain Bo Horvat to an extension. He can become an unrestricted free agent after this season. Getting back to the playoffs would figure to be difficult without Miller, who leads Vancouver in goals (74) and points (217) and is tied with Quinn Hughes for the Canucks lead in assists (143) since being acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 22, 2019.
Miller earned the praise of coach Bruce Boudreau for his performance and leadership while playing a key role in the Canucks turnaround last season.
Vancouver (40-30-12) started 8-15-2 before firing coach Travis Green on Dec. 5 and replacing him with Boudreau. The Canucks went 32-15-10 under Boudreau and got back into the playoff race, finishing five points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card from the Western Conference.
Given all of that, Allvin said he doesn't feel pressure to trade Miller.
"No, not at all," he said. "We're starting the season here with this team as of today and we'll see here if anything comes up that makes sense for us to take a look at if we improve our group by doing a trade or not. But otherwise we're happy with this group we have."
