All’s right with Miller
It’ll be tough on B’s when choosing sides
The Bruins clung to a one-goal lead late in the third period against San Jose when Kevan Miller grabbed hold of a puck in his own end and headed up ice. The rugged Miller may not be as known for his offense as he is for pancaking opponents along the boards, but once the 6-foot-2, 210-pound freight train gets rolling down the right wing, no ones going to knock it off the track.
Miller skated from endto-end and then made a centering pass to Danton Heinen for the redirect home, putting two points in the bag for the transcontinental flight home.
It is a play that Miller, who steadily has added offensive elements to his game since becoming a full-time NHLer in 2013-14, is very capable of making, as long as the right-shot defenseman is playing on the right side. If the B’s were healthy last Saturday in San Jose, then chances are he would not have been in that spot.
The B’s started out the season with four right-shot defensemen (Charlie McAvoy, Miller, Brandon Carlo and the currently injured Adam McQuaid) and two left-shot blueliners (Zdeno Chara and Matt Grzelcyk, who was soon replaced by the recuperating Torey Krug) with righty Paul Postma as the extra. That meant one of the righties had to play the left side, and it fell upon Miller to move to his off side and play with McAvoy. The downside of that showed up in the season opener against Nashville. With the B’s up 3-1 late in the third, Miller attempted a chip-out that would have been routine had he been working with his forehand, but the play becomes more difficult on the backhand. Miller chipped it over the glass for a penalty, beginning a sequence of events that led to a near comeback by the Predators.
Since McQuaid went out of the lineup with a broken fibula on Oct.15, Miller has played more on the right side, and it seems coach Bruce Cassidy has tried to keep it that way.
No hard and fast decision has been made to keep Miller on the right side, but it seems that would be best for the player and team eventually. Just because he play the off side and — good soldier that he is — appears willing to do it, doesn’t mean he play there.
“I don’t know if we’ve gotten to that point, but we want to as much as possible while still dressing the best six guys. So that’s the challenge we’ve got,” Cassidy said last week before the New Jersey game. “And that’s why Grizz (Grzelcyk) is up because we like both (Miller) and Paul on the right side. And Carlo we haven’t used a whole lot on the left and I don’t really want to move Charlie to find out how he does play the left side. That’s been a bit of a challenge. We were hoping it would play out that the left side wasn’t an issue. I don’t think it’s to the point where we can’t do it. I think it’s just proven itself that the right is easier than the left.”
Cassidy didn’t want to quantify how much better a player Miller is on his natural side than the left.
“I don’t know if I want to go down that road. I just think he’s more comfortable there,” Cassidy said. “It’s just inevitable that you’re going to get in some bad spots on your off-side handing the puck on your backhand handling the puck as opposed to the forehand with it. It’s harder to make a play. And that’s it. I don’t know if there’s a difference with his battle level, how he’s going to approach the game in terms of his matchup. It’s just those little areas. When you’re in tight games, then you’ve got to factor it in a little bit.”
So the remaining question — unanswerable right now — is this: What happens when McQuaid gets back? OK, so he’s still a month or so away from his targeted return date. And with the way this season has gone for the Bruins in regard to injuries, it seems almost a pipe dream to have a fully healthy blue line.
But in the event that may happen, do you simply go back with the four rightiestwo
lefties makeup and move Miller back to the left side? Or has Grzelcyk or Robbie O’Gara developed to the point where they can even it up? And if that’s the case, where does that leave McQuaid, the selfless, bodysacrificing veteran who certainly has earned the right to get back in the lineup when healthy? How reluctant would the B’s be to move McQuaid, a universally respected player in the locker room and one of the toughest guys in the league — perhaps for a like-minded lefty D-man?
Those decisions will fall on management and Cassidy, as will the tough choices on whom to remove from the lineup up front when David Backes, Brad Marchand and Anders Bjork return. But after watching Miller cruise up the right wing and seal the victory last weekend, it seems as if the B’s would be robbing themselves of a pretty good weapon by putting him back on the left.