VANCOUVER — The progression of J.T. Miller has been so full and sustained, both in how he plays and how he acts, it is easy to overlook at times that he remains old-school at heart.
But in Buffalo last weekend, after the Vancouver Canucks centre unintentionally caught Sabres defenceman Rasmus Dahlin in the head with his shoulder, Miller dropped his gloves but threw no punches when second-year pro Owen Power confronted Miller but got himself into a vulnerable position.
A few minutes later, Miller made himself accountable when challenged by veteran Sabre Erik Johnson and had his first fight of the National Hockey League season.
“I understand that you’ve got to answer for yourself sometimes,” Miller explained Wednesday.
Man, does he ever understand it.
It seemed last season Miller had to answer as much for his lapses and misdeeds — about a stick smash or lazy line change or weak backcheck — as anything he did right.
Those acts of anger and frustration have all but disappeared from Miller’s game this season as he has become, under coach Rick Tocchet, an elite matchup centre who is tied for fourth in NHL scoring with 20 goals and 60 points despite playing nightly against the opposition’s best players.
“Winning cures a lot,” Miller said after Wednesday’s practice at Rogers Arena, but that simple explanation doesn’t fully explain the 30-year-old’s evolution.
“I came in with a real open mind because sometimes people are misunderstood,” Tocchet said of inheriting Miller and the Canucks last January. “How am I supposed to judge the guy? I don’t even know him. So, for me, it was coming in with an open mind and building a trusting relationship with him. I think Millsy trusted me. That was my goal.
“I think Millsy trusts our coaching staff. And if there is an outburst, which we all have, I don’t care. To me it’s: How do you react after the outbursts or the frustration? How can you get yourself back into the game and into the moment? And I think from last year to this year … I’m really proud of how he’s chipped away at that. Really proud.”
Almost everyone gets angry. Canuck Elias Pettersson, a Lady Byng candidate who has two minor penalties all season, has smashed his stick. Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes slammed the door at the bench during the Buffalo game.
The last time we can remember Miller crossing the line was Halloween night, when he took three minor penalties, two of them selfish ones, against the Nashville Predators. After Miller served the last of these for a retaliatory high-stick against defenceman Roman Josi, Tocchet benched the Canuck for the final 4:47 of the second period.
Miller missed one five-on-five shift and a turn on the power play. Tocchet then started Miller’s line in the third period. He later scored to help secure a 5-2 win.
“I grabbed him after the second and said: ‘Are you OK? Because if you’re not ready, I can’t play you,’” Tocchet recalled. “He said, ‘I’m OK.’ I started him in the third. I thought he deserved that. And then after the game, we kind of both apologized to each other.”
“It’s still a work in progress,” Miller said of managing his emotions. “It’s a constant battle. I’m so lucky to have coaches like Yeosy and Footer (assistants Mike Yeo and Adam Foote) and Rick, especially. They’re all emotional guys. They’ve helped me be comfortable with being an emotional person. My whole life I’ve been emotional and competitive, but that was hardly the part that got reported on. It was the bad side. It was something that people didn’t understand. They helped me be comfortable and just own that I’m an emotional person. It’s OK. I don’t really feel sorry for being emotional anymore.
“It’s a constant … not struggle, but I want to work on it. I understand that when I’m upset, it can affect the emotion of the team and I don’t want that. That’s the last thing I want, and that’s the guilt I’ve got to live with when I do burst or whatever the hell it is. For most of the time, my energy is spent in the right direction. I think we’re just trying to get another five or 10 per cent focus.”
Miller said winning makes everything easier. At 29-11-4, second in the NHL in points, the Canucks open a five-game homestand Thursday against the Arizona Coyotes that will carry Vancouver into the All-Star break.
Tocchet and Miller are going to All-Star Weekend in Toronto, along with Canucks Pettersson, Hughes, Brock Boeser and Thatcher Demko.
Canuck Nation stuffed the all-star ballot box, but the representation is also indicative of just how good this season has been in Vancouver.
“It’s the experience and it’s the maturity that everybody was sick of losing,” Miller said. “It’s easy to say you’re sick of losing, right? But you’ve got to do something in order to change that. We’ve talked about it a lot. For the first time it feels like everybody kind of knows their role, and it’s felt like that since camp.
“There’s been a lot of turnover here in the last two years. So, I mean, it kind of feels fresh. It feels like a fresh thing with Rick and his staff and (general manager) Patrik Allvin and (president) Jim Rutherford. Everybody’s got one thing on their mind, and that’s playing in May and June. It’s been nice to see the win column be at a place that we haven’t seen since I’ve been here.”
Miller is also at a place he hasn’t been.
After 11 seasons in the NHL and in the first year of a seven-year, $56-million extension that a lot of critics believe is a disaster, the American power forward is playing probably the best hockey of his career.
He is enjoying the same PDO inflation that the rest of the Canucks are, but Miller hasn’t gone more than a game without at least a point since Week 2 of the regular season.
“That goes back to like what I was saying: we’re winning,” Miller said. “It’s not negative all the time. It’s not the coach needs to be fired and the players need to be traded. All the B.S. has kind of subsided, and it all revolves around winning hockey. It allows me to just play. I don’t have to try to go out of my way to fix things.
“You get out of character when you’re not winning. You get frustrated more. You force plays a little bit more because you’re down. To me, everybody looks like they’re having a good season now, right? Everybody looks good. Things are happening here and it’s exciting.”
