Deal done, but Colin Miller sees work ahead

Collin Miller takes a drive. Not a blistering-slap-shot "Miller drive" that produced 10 goals last regular season, but something far less dramatic. In July, it means 25 minutes in the car driving from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Miller's hometown, to a lake house purchased a few years ago.

"You can just come home and relax," Miller says of his summer digs. On the shore of Lake Huron, Miller spends time with friends riding jet skis, pitching bon fires and fishing off the dock. "It's a pretty nice way not to think about too much at all."
There was a lot to think about last summer. Miller, coming off his second NHL season, was selected by the Golden Knights in the expansion draft. The Boston Bruins hadn't protected the player whom they acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in the Milan Lucic trade a year earlier. The challenge of a new organization in a new NHL market created more questions than it provided answers.
"I don't think we knew what to expect," Miller said.
After a foot-to-the-floor first season in Vegas for Miller, with career highs in goals and points, the Golden Knights signed the 25-year-old defenseman to a four-year contract worth an average of $3.875 million per season last Saturday.
"I couldn't be happier to be in Vegas for four more years, especially with the group of guys that we have in that locker room," Miller said by phone Monday. "You want to be a part of it. And you want to be a big part of it. Hopefully that's what I can be."
Miller didn't miss one of the Golden Knights' 102 games, regular season or playoffs. He said the process of negotiating a new contract went smoothly and that both sides were happy.
"It would be hard to think about going anywhere else," he said. "The relationships that we made in just one year, and the way the brass and the staff have treated us has really been out of this world."
Miller inked his new contract two days after filing for salary arbitration, but 13 days before an arbitration hearing could've been scheduled. The deal is twice as long and nearly eight times more lucrative than the pact he signed with Boston in 2016 ($1 million per season for two years).
"It's a big thing for a player to get a contract like this," Miller said. "I mean it's something that you work for your whole life. It's not taken lightly on my end. And there's definitely a lot more work to be done and I'm looking forward to that."
Monday in Sault Ste. Marie, young hockey players skated with the local hero at a camp organized by one of Miller's former coaches. Thirty-two days had passed since Miller's last time on skates, Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. Later this month he'll serve as an instructor at the Soo Thunderbirds (NOJHL) prospect camp.
"The Soo's a pretty big hockey town. I don't even think they take the ice out here in the summer," Miller said.
He was captain of the Thunderbirds in 2009-10 and played the next three seasons for his hometown's OHL club, the Greyhounds. After winning the AHL's championship with the Manchester Monarchs in 2015, he brought the Calder Cup home to share with the community that continues to follow him today.
"They want to know everything," Miller said of his hometown fans. "You try to explain to them that Vegas is a lot more than just The Strip… I think the community out there in Summerlin, it's beautiful- a lot of the guys really enjoy living there."
Miller has a "laid back" month and a half before he's due in Summerlin for training camp at City National Arena and said he's happy to be heading back.
"I think there will be a lot of expectations, but also there will be a lot of doubters," Miller said. "In some sense you could say it's a similar situation to the way we were last year."