Penguins and Canucks failed to finalize major trade before the deadline.

The National Hockey League's trade deadline has now officially come and gone and that means that both players and fans around the NHL can finally relax a little and take in the new landscape of the NHL after a flurry of trades this week.

Although there were plenty of interesting deals to analyze during the course of the week, for some fan bases the most interesting trades will be the ones that didn't happen. That may be the case for both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks given that they, despite some high-level denials, appear to have been working on a major deal leading up to the deadline.

On Saturday morning, one day after the deadline, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that the rumors surrounding Canucks forward J.T. Miller and a possible trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins did have some substance to them.

"On and off, over the past few months, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks have had conversations about J.T. Miller," revealed Friedman on his 32 Thoughts Podcast. "About if they were going to do something, this is what it would look like."

Interestingly enough, Friedman was also able to share some insight on why the deal never materialized before the deadline. Unfortunately it sounds like this could be an ongoing issue that could prevent this deal from ever becoming a reality.

"I think they talked about it, here's the problem," said Friedman. "Vancouver wanted a young center and Pittsburgh doesn't have one of those. Was Vancouver willing to deal with Pittsburgh? Yes I think they were. Was Pittsburgh willing to deal with Vancouver? Yes I think they were."

It sounds like any deal involving J.T. Miller going to Pittsburgh would have been incredibly complicated, although the two sides did try and find ways to make it work, and would have almost certainly involved another team.

"Were the two of them able to make a deal together? No I don't think they were," said Friedman. "But were they trying to think of ways they could possibly make it happen? Yes. I think it was incredibly complicated."

While there are clear obstacles to getting a deal done in this situation, Friedman indicated that he believes this one could be revisited again come the offseason.

"I don't think this is over," said Friedman. "I think it could potentially be discussed during the offseason... it probably needs one more team, maybe two, and we'll see."