PHILADELPHIA -- Kevan Miller was eased back into things with the Bruins for the first two games upon returning to the lineup from a fractured hand, but the training wheels were off once the B’s were down to five D-men against Tampa over the weekend.
Miller logged a career-high 26:42 of ice time after John-Michael Liles went down a couple of shifts into the game, and the right shot defenseman even played the left side for one of the first times in his NHL career with the Bruins. It certainly wasn’t by the coaching staff’s design, but had more to do with Miller playing his best game this season to date after missing the first six weeks of the year following the preseason injury.
“As long as he plays the way he’s playing,” said Julien, when asked if he’ll continue to give Miller that much ice in the short term. “I don’t think we’ve ever held anybody back that’s playing well. For him to step in to the left side and do the job [was good]. He said he’d played there before [at UVM] and a little bit for us last year. It was great that he was able to step up, play as many minutes as he did and play as well as he did.
“Guys that play well like that deserve to play as much as he did, and deserve the ice time. We’re all here with the same goal to win hockey games, and we put our best players on the ice.”
With both Liles and Zdeno Chara still out against a Flyers team that’s ranked third in the NHL scoring 3.1 goals per game, Miller will likely again log big minutes as a shutdown defensemen capable of winning battles in the defensive zone. Miller said it was about whatever the team needed, but logging all those minutes and shifts certainly helped speed up the process of knocking rust off his game.
“As a group we need to collectively pick each other up and perform,” said Miller, who finished with a career-high 19:04 of ice time for the Bruins out of necessity last season. “[For me] it’s a process, [my game] is coming. It was my third game back and I’m feeling better every day. My thumb feels pretty good.
“It’s just the next guy up and the next guy over the boards and you don’t think about [the ice time] too much. You just want to go out there and keep things simple for your team.”
Boston Bruins
Miller and the Bruins will have their work cut out for them against a high-powered Flyers attack, and will have to hope that the defenseman is again up for the challenge playing in just his fourth game of the season back from injury.