Rangers name J.T. Miller 29th captain in franchise history
J.T. Miller was named the 29th captain in New York Rangers history on Tuesday. The announcement came one day before players report to training camp ahead of the 2025-26 NHL season.
The 32-year-old forward was re-acquired by the Rangers in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 31 to help change the culture and personality of the team last season. Miller is intense and often abrasive, both on and off the ice. And clearly Rangers management believes in his leadership style.
“Since his arrival last season, J.T. immediately became a leader for our group and exemplifies how we want to conduct ourselves both on and off the ice,” Rangers general manager Chris Drury said in a statement. “Congratulations to J.T. and his entire family on an incredibly meaningful achievement and we’re confident he will continue to represent our organization with class, commitment, and integrity.”
Drury knows a thing or two about leadership and wearing the C. He was Rangers captain from 2008-11, and previously was captain for the Buffalo Sabres.
Miller replaces Jacob Trouba, who was traded by the Rangers last season to the Anaheim Ducks in December. In fact, the past three Rangers captains — Ryan Callahan, Ryan McDonagh, and Trouba — were all traded mid-season. For what it’s worth, Miller has a full no-movement clause in his seven-year, $56 million contract that runs through the 2029-30 season.
Per reports, Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck will be alternate captains this season. Zibanejad, Fox, and Panarin were alternates last season. Trocheck receives an A on his sweater in place of Chris Kreider, who was part of the leadership group in 2024-25 but traded to the Ducks this offseason.
Back in early June, ESPN New York radio talk-show host Don Lagreca advocated to Forever Blueshirts that Miller be the new focal point of the Rangers.
“The Rangers will be better off when this becomes J.T. Miller’s team. Whatever they do, it has to accentuate and be something that works around J.T. Miller,” Lagreca said on the RINK RAP podcast. “I just think getting away from the Kreider-Zibanejad Rangers and making it the J.T. Miller Rangers is probably the best thing.”
Related: Canucks GM opens up about Rangers star: ‘I have a lot of respect for J.T. Miller’
J.T. Miller named Rangers captain
It appears that the Rangers and new coach Mike Sullivan didn’t want the captaincy question hovering over them in training camp. So, they got ahead of it with a decisive call before camp opened.
Sullivan is expected to speak with the media on Wednesday and will detail why he believes Miller is the correct choice to wear the C. There was plenty of debate outside the organization whether Miller, Trocheck, or Fox would be the next captain.
But Miller is the Rangers captain. And it’s been quite the journey for him to arrive at this point after the Rangers made him their first-round pick (No. 15 overall) in the 2011 NHL Draft.
Miller arrived as a cocky 18-year-old, full of piss and vinegar. His swagger made him an easy target for Rangers veterans, Derek Stepan recalled recently.
“If there was one young guy who handled taking sh** from the older guys, it was J.T,” the former Rangers center explained on the Morning Cuppa Hockey podcast. “And he was great at it. He came in and gave it back.”
Not the most mature kid at the time, Miller bounced between the Rangers and Hartford of the American Hockey League for three seasons from 2012-15. Miller did help the Rangers reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2014, though he appeared in only four postseason games, none in the five-game Final loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
In 2014-15, he helped the Rangers win the Presidents’ Trophy and was a postseason regular, appearing in 19 games when the Rangers advanced to the Eastern Conference Final and lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games.
Miller scored 22 goals each of the next two seasons with the Rangers and had 56 points in 2016-17. But he was dealt to the Lightning along with McDonagh to begin the Rangers rebuild ahead of the 2018 trade deadline. After a middling season and a half with the Lightning, Miller was traded to the Canucks on June 22, 2019.
It’s in Vancouver where Miller blossomed into an NHL star. He had 27 goals and 72 points in 2019-20, and scored 30 or more goals three straight seasons from 2021-24. After registering 99 and 82 points, Miller exploded for 103 points (37 goals, 66 assists) in 2023-24.
Last season was a slog to start for Miller. There was growing unrest with star teammate Elias Pettersson that went public. Miller took a 10-game leave of absence from the team at one point. And then he was traded to the Rangers, who were in the midst of their own miserable soap-opera season.
Miller provided a jolt to the Rangers with his physical play and intensity. He scored 13 goals and finished with 35 points in 32 games, though the Rangers failed to make the playoffs for the first time in four seasons.
But the Miller trade was made with a long-term view, not simply a short-term fix. And that was proven Tuesday when their former first-round pick was named the Rangers new captain.
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