This year, the Rangers will get a chance to move past their dismal 77-point campaign of last year. It\u2019ll be different from the start, with no Vincent Trocheck (traded in the offseason) and no Artemi Panarin (traded before the Olympic roster freeze<\/a>) here at this training camp. But at the crux of it all, of course, will be Miller, who gets a chance to move past his own woes of 2025-26 while occupying a critical role as the second-line center \u2014 skating alongside dynamic acquisition Pavel Dorofeyev<\/a> for now \u2014 with Trocheck now in Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a lot last year,\u201d Miller said. \u201cJust a little bit of distraction everywhere, it seemed like, around our team. Obviously with The Letter coming out, I was hurt a lot of the year, I was at the Olympics \u2014 just a busy season, and I feel like it\u2019s kinda hard to evaluate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut certainly not satisfied and saying that that\u2019s the standard for myself. I mean, we didn\u2019t get to where we want to be, and I took a lot of ownership of that. I just feel fresh right now. I feel good. And I\u2019m excited that we get another crack at it this year with a fresh slate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The stakes will always be high for Miller. That\u2019s the pressure that comes with the \u201cC\u201d sewn on his chest, just as it did for Jacob Trouba and Ryan McDonagh and Ryan Callahan and Mark Messier and all the other past Blueshirts captains. Miller said he expects more from himself as a leader this year. He said he learned from mistakes last season, which quickly spiraled into selling at the trade deadline and a reality where president and general manager Chris Drury dropped The Letter 2.0.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miller spent time at both center and wing last year in the 68 games he did appear in, and when the Rangers\u2019 first group \u2014 with mostly NHL players \u2014 skated Thursday, Miller, 33, was positioned between Dorofeyev and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Dorofeyev collected more than 30 goals the past two seasons with the Golden Knights. He was the draft-day splash by the Blueshirts, the hyped acquisition during a public retool who could be the missing piece that tips the Rangers toward being a playoff team in April. <\/p>\n Head coach Mike Sullivan said that Miller\u2019s play-making ability with the puck is \u201cprobably undervalued by some,\u201d and Sullivan expressed a belief in Miller being able to serve as the Rangers\u2019 second-line center, indirectly doubling as a belief that his skill set can complement Dorofeyev if they break camp still paired together.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe has the ability to distribute the puck,\u201d Sullivan said of Miller. \u201cI think J.T. brings a physical element and a down-low game, a grind game that I think he can drag his linemates into a little bit so they can create some offense different ways. I think [Dorofeyev is] a guy that obviously can score goals, and so we wanted to see what that looks like.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n That role will only add to the pressure facing Miller this season. To the expectations that he can avoid the struggles from last year reappearing again and becoming a norm for his second Blueshirts stint. For one day, those stakes faded with the arrival of a new training camp, where \u201cvibe\u201d and \u201cexcitement\u201d and anything else that described palpable energy were the buzzwords of his press conference that captured the emotion of the Rangers\u2019 entire session.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel very hungry,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI mean, after a year like last year, I just think in general I think I\u2019m naturally competitive \u2014 I\u2019d like to be better, I want the team to play better, I want better results.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J.T. Miller was measured. Thursday, after all, was just the first day of training camp for the Rangers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[51063,4823,385,99,14594],"class_list":["post-852217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-j-t-miller","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-training-camp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/new-york-rangers-center-j-119346373.jpg\")
New York Rangers center J.T. Miller (8) shoots on goal against the Los Angeles Kings during the third period at Crypto.com Arena. Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/new-york-rangers-center-j-124292150.jpg\")
J.T. Miller will captain a Rangers squad that has undergone a number of roster changes over the past few months. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n