Boston Bruins

Report: Leafs could use Vegas to land Colin Miller from Bruins
June 20, 2017, 7:41 PM ET [3 Comments]
Ty Anderson
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Bruins defenseman Colin Miller could indeed be selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in tomorrow’s expansion draft. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll play a game for the league’s 31st team.

With Golden Knights general manager George McPhee admitting that the club is loading up on defensemen tomorrow night with the idea of then flipping them for a greater return, TSN’s Frank Seravalli has linked the possibility of the Leafs and Knights swinging a deal for one of those d-men.

And one of them mentioned is, of course, Boston’s Miller.

Not necessarily considered the primary focus of the Leafs front office, Seravalli has linked the Leafs to Miller through Las Vegas given their familiarity with the 24-year-old dating back to his junior days.

“The Leafs’ front office would also be intimately familiar with Bruins defenceman Colin Miller, a right-shot defenceman from another division rival who could represent a more inexpensive option,” Seravalli wrote, “Miller, 24, posted strong possession numbers this season and played his junior hockey in Sault Ste. Marie when Leafs assistant GM Kyle Dubas was the Greyhounds’ GM.”

Acquired from the Kings as part of the return for Milan Lucic in 2015, the 6-foot-1 Miller has recorded nine goals and 29 points in 103 NHL games with Boston, including six goals and 13 points in 61 games last season, and also led B’s defenders in both Corsi-For percentage and Goals-For percentage.

The decision to expose Miller to the expansion draft is a polarizing one, to say the least.

Frequently criticized as a team that gives up on players too soon, the mismanagement of the Miller situation has given that camp another round of ammunition (not that they needed it).

Miller has routinely wowed fans with his strong first pass, fluid skating game, and his absolutely booming shot. Together, it’s an incredible package that I would certainly agree would be straight-up dumb of the Bruins to ditch. Rarely, however, is it all together on a consistent basis with tangible production that the Black and Gold desperately need from their defense corps.

And therein lies the problem.

When you look at what the Bruins are right now, and particularly on their backend, the right side of their defense corps is perhaps the lone surplus of their NHL roster. It’s there that you have the Miller defensemen, McQuaid, Brandon Carlo, and Charlie McAvoy. The elder Miller, for what it’s worth, is a right-shot defender that’s more than capable and familiar when it comes to playing on the left side, which is one of the reasons he was protected over the others in the first place.

But that logjam makes it admittedly tough to project Miller’s long-term fit in Boston.

Carlo, in just his first full year of pro hockey, was a definite fit to Zdeno Chara’s right for 82 games before a concussion knocked him out of all six of the club’s playoff games this past spring. And when he went down, McAvoy stepped into that role seamlessly. Both are expected to be top-four fixtures for the Bruins next season, too, with one to No. 33’s right and the other (likely Carlo) next to Torey Krug. McAvoy will also probably eat into some of the favorable zone starts and power-play time Miller had last year, too. So then you’re talking about Miller battling for minutes with a Kevan Miller (if the Bruins find a way to acquire that left-side defensive help they’re after this offseason) or the veteran McQuaid.

That would not be a positive sign for No. 6, either, as those players have been valued more than he has, whether you like it to hear that or not. McQuaid is viewed as a steadying, d-zone presence needed for the puck-mover to his left, and it goes without saying that the B’s don’t protect Kevan Miller to make him the club’s seventh defensemen just a season later.

It would mean that the Ontario-born Miller would be in line for his third-straight season of part-time work. And that stop-and-start development benefits nobody, as Matt Bartkowski would tell you.

Still, under contract at $1 million next season before he becomes a restricted free agent in 2018, Miller’s deal and potential has undeniable value to the B’s, Knights, or anybody else for that matter.

And though other NHL general managers have made unofficial deals with McPhee to not draft certain players off their roster, it is not believed that Bruins GM Don Sweeney is among that group.