GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- To begin the story of J.T. Miller's new role as captain of the New York Rangers, you first have to go back to his final chapter with the Vancouver Canucks, pages that document a personal leave of absence, his volcanic departure, the relief he felt getting traded, and how he grinded to the end of an exhausting and mentally draining season.
The new chapter about Miller, who he is now with the Rangers and what he plans to be as their captain, would be incomplete without the honest, self-reflecting story of how he got here.
"There was a lot of outside influence, a lot of extra stuff going on in the last few years where I felt the urge to do more than I was being asked to do," Miller told NHL.com in a sit-down interview after practice on Friday. "It creates a monster, if you will."
That monster still lives inside Miller. It always has and likely always will. But that part of him is a big reason why the Rangers named him captain on Sept. 16, one day before the start of training camp.
"He represents in so many ways what we hope Rangers hockey is going to look like with the way he plays the game," coach Mike Sullivan said on Day 1 of camp. "He's a fierce competitor."
Miller will be a fierce leader, too. No one doubts that as he prepares to represent the Rangers as the 29th captain in their 100-year history, a centennial that is being celebrated this season, starting against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 7 (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN1, TVAS).
"I'm still going to have expectations for myself and from the outer circles," Miller said. "I love that. It makes me the player that I am. I don't feel the extra added pressure. I really don't."
But Miller is cognizant of his past, of how rifts with former teammates in Vancouver, most notably with forward Elias Pettersson, exploded publicly and played a massive role during a season he said he'd like to forget, a season when the monster inside of him might have won too often.
"Last year was the most exhausting," Miller said.
Miller, in fact, is now in New York instead of Vancouver because of how everything transpired last season.
He had signed a seven-year, $56 million contract ($8 million average annual value) with the Canucks on Sept. 2, 2022, when he was coming off a 99-point season (32 goals, 67 assists).
He then had 82 points (32 goals, 50 assists) in 2022-23 and an NHL career-high 103 points (37 goals, 66 assists) in 2023-24, but it all came crashing down last season, leading to his trade to New York on Jan. 31.
"Just a long year," Miller said. "A year I'd like to forget about, quite frankly."
Miller said how he was cast publicly in Vancouver, as a yeller and a demanding teammate, was overblown, though he added that it was an experience that can help guide him in his new role with the Rangers.
"I don't think it's ever going to be perfect, but the emotion I play with, it's in me, so it's managing that, keeping it to 5-10 percent of the time that it's bad," Miller said. "We all know that guys who play with emotion, you're not going to be 100 percent (good). It's easy for guys who don't have a heartbeat to say, 'Hey, calm down.' That's kind of empty to me. But I just think it's about keeping it to 5-10 percent of the time."
Do that, Miller said, and he'll be the captain his teammates want and need him to be.
"He's known to challenge his teammates at times and wear his emotions on his sleeve, and I think as a captain you can definitely do that as long as you're doing that on the ice, and that's something that J.T. does," said former Rangers captain Ryan Callahan, who played with Miller during his first stint with the Rangers (2012-14) and also with the Tampa Bay Lightning (2018-19). "He finishes his checks, he blocks shots. He does all those little aspects of the game and he competes at a very high level. If you're doing that you have the right to demand it of your teammates.
"If there are points throughout the year where he does have to challenge guys or say some things in the room that are uncomfortable, which captains have to do, I don't think he's going to have a hard time doing that, which is great for him and the Rangers."
A critic could say it's easy to have that opinion now because the Rangers haven't lost a game yet. Everything has been positive in training camp, so its easy to look at the potential of facing adversity through a positive lens.
Last year, when things were getting emotionally challenging in Vancouver, it was happening at a time when the Canucks were losing.
But Miller isn't concerned. Instead, he's confident because last season's tumult helped him to remember a perspective he was taught to have long ago.
"Things are never as good as you think they are and things are never as bad as you think they are," Miller said. "I had a teammate tell me that when I was here a long time ago, and I just feel like [last season] is a prime example. Everything was so magnified, so I feel I took things more to heart than I had and maybe celebrated things more than I had to. I can just realize that, man, it's a long game, a long season, so just keep pushing it forward. [Sullivan] says, 'Move the needle 1 percent.' It might be a cliché to some people, but now I understand what he means. Just keep it moving forward. You don't have to try to get it all and take a step back to do it. I've learned you can be patient and get what you want."
Miller wants to be great in New York. He wants to lead the Rangers back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, to a Stanley Cup championship. He wants his new role to be the start of the best chapter of his career.
Learning from what he went through in his worst chapter could give him his best shot at getting everything he wants.
"I'm just trying to enjoy this and to be what I want my teammates to want me to be as a captain," Miller said. "That's all I'm trying to do. I take an insane amount of pride in what's going on right now. I never thought this would have happened years ago. Obviously, nobody would have. I know there are going to be moments that are going to stink, but it's nothing new. I take it as a challenge. I'm excited to see how I face it now because I feel more confident."
