If J.T. Miller is ever going to earn a spot playing for coach Alain Vigneault, it’s not going to be at center, where the depth chart features Derek Stepan, Derick Brassard, Kevin Hayes and Dominic Moore in New York, and with the handy, if underwhelming, Chris Mueller and developing Oscar Lindberg in Hartford.
So then why has Miller — who played only six of his 30 games in the middle last season for the Rangers — been playing center regularly for the AHL Wolf Pack when the Blueshirts have a crying need for a winger with size, speed and grit to his game?
We’re told the organization was pondering shifting the 21-year-old (still only 21) to the wing for Friday’s match in Providence, but it’s impossible to understand why it would have taken so long.
It’s not about what the AHL team needs. It never is. Or at least it never should be.
And at this point, it is time for the Rangers to declare that Miller is a winger. Enough of this indecision, of this counterproductive shifting from center to wing and then back again. The potential spot in the middle in New York that Miller seemed destined to fill has been usurped by the 22-year-old Hayes, a Vigneault favorite from Day 1.
The Rangers, who get back to work Sunday at the Garden against Montreal, don’t have much size on the wing following the free-agent defections of big-bodied Benoit Pouliot and Brian Boyle. Mats Zuccarello might be the most consistently physical winger on the club, and he’s 5-foot-6. Lee Stempniak doesn’t win enough pucks, and neither does Jesper Fast, even if both players are generally smart enough to be in the right spots.
Chris Kreider should be the club’s muscle, but he is still learning how to harness his power. You can see it with Kreider, who may be the strongest man in the league: He shrinks a bit whenever he’s involved in an incident such as the one on Oct. 27, when he picked up a boarding major and game misconduct for his nudge — that’s pretty much what it was — that sent Minnesota’s Jonas Brodin into the wall from 5 feet away.
Ryan Malone? Well, it was always a long shot that the winger rescued by general manager Glen Sather would be able to make a significant contribution to the Rangers. But the fact is Malone — who may be a dinosaur in a tempo game — never got a legitimate chance under Vigneault before being waived to the Wolf Pack a couple of weeks ago.
Of his 46:40 of five-on-five hockey as a Blueshirt, Malone got 8:26 with Brassard and 6:05 with Zuccarello in the spot that belonged to Pouliot last season once Vigneault settled on his combinations after three months of juggling and experimentation.
Miller isn’t a horse. He’s not Milan Lucic. He’s not Kreider. He’s not necessarily a power forward. Three years into his pro career, he’s more unknown than a known commodity. But when he’s going, he plays with bite. He’s aggressive. He initiates. He can win some battles.
Maybe he won’t win enough of them on the wall in the NHL. Maybe his game isn’t now and won’t in the foreseeable future mature enough to gain Vigneault’s trust. Maybe Miller will be traded sooner than later.
But two things seem clear: A) If Miller has a future in New York, it is as a wing, not as a center, which means, B) that is where he should be playing for the Wolf Pack.
The Rangers’ game against the Sabres that was postponed Friday will be made up on Feb. 20 in Buffalo, the NHL announced.