K’Andre Miller’s 2 key mistakes vs. Stars might spell end to Rangers playoff hopes
One play, one moment, can sometimes define and cement the course of a team’s season. K’Andre Miller authored two of them in the New York Rangers’ last game — both of which might go a long way toward sealing the Blueshirts’ ignominious 2024-25 fate.
For 57 minutes of their home game against the formidable Dallas Stars on Tuesday, the Rangers battled for what would have been their most important victory of the season, surging out to a 3-0 lead barely halfway through the first period. Staying in the Jekyll-and-Hyde character that has marked 2024-25, they squandered it, allowing Dallas to draw even at 3-3 at 13:14 of the second.
Yet this time appeared different. The Rangers, while still under siege during the period, didn’t collapse. They bent but didn’t break and kept grinding away, earning a power play midway through the third. Likely captain-in-waiting Vincent Trocheck scored his second deflected-in goal of the match, tipping Mika Zibanejad’s wrister past Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger.
The Rangers bench erupted, as did Madison Square Garden, in a mixture of elation — and perhaps even more relief. The Blueshirts were 7:04 away from their third win in four games, this one against an elite opponent — a common such victory in last season’s run to the Presidents’ Trophy, but one that’s been almost completely absent in this hair-pulling 18-20-2 campaign.
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But less than five minutes later, Miller drifted back into the defensive zone, the puck on his stick and no pressure from any Dallas forwards, with the Stars in the midst of a line change. He drifted toward the right boards, with wide-open teammates to the right, at the center of the zone and across Jonathan Quick’s crease to the left.
Stars center Sam Steel finally appeared on the forecheck and made a beeline for Miller. Flustered, surprised, whatever the emotion, Miller panicked and tried to fling the puck away from the oncoming opponent. Steel blocked the attempt, stole the puck and worked his way behind the net.
Miller stayed with Steel, but for whatever reason, completely failed to tie up the smaller man’s stick with his long reach and strength, allowing Steel to maintain possession. That made it easy for him to deliver a pass into the slot to an uncovered Thomas Harley, who beat Quick for the equalizer.
Trocheck pumped his stick downward toward the ice in an excruciating gesture of frustration. One could feel the air finally coming out of the Rangers in this game, as it had so much earlier in so many dishearterning efforts this season. MSG Networks analyst Joe Micheletti could barely cover up his disgust, ruminating over the play for nearly another minute of action.
Miller skated toward the bench, head down, seemingly in disbelief. The lapse, as bad as any in a season filled with them, would of course come back to bite them.
The Rangers made it to overtime, earning a point, but the Stars took advantage of another mistake. Artemi Panarin committed a hooking penalty 25 seconds in, and Dallas won it on Jamie Benn’s tip-in from in front on — you guessed it — another blown defensive assignment.
The image of the Blueshirts finally starting to extricate themselves from the quicksand, pulling themselves out with a tree branch, morphed into one of that branch breaking and them being sucked back down into the morass that has enveloped them throughout 2024-25.
Miller’s blunder occurred at the worst possible time and came with the feeling that it happened at a crossroads. Had the Rangers held on to win, they would have carried desperately needed confidence and belief into their rematch with the New Jersey Devils, who have dominated and beaten them badly in two meetings this season, two nights later.
Instead, this emotionally fragile group stumbles into Round 3, apparently still uncertain of how to close and no doubt even less sure of themselves than they were before Miller’s stunning gaffe.
Again, there was the usual bevy of errors by these Rangers, not just the one. Panarin’s penalty set the stage for the Stars to complete yet another comeback, and Trocheck took responsibility afterward for not covering Harley in the slot on the tying goal. Poor execution, lack of attention to detail and questionable effort and commitment has been a team-wide, season-long affliction.
Yet Miller’s turnover was the killer, the one that seemed to drain his team of the steady progress and momentum that had been built up over nearly four games. It’s the one that might ultimately send the Blueshirts down the path toward a trade deadline selloff, rather than a playoff berth that looked unlikely even before the loss to Dallas.
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For Miller, the shocking fail can’t have helped his uncertain future with the club. A tantalizing young player with size, powerful skating, athleticism and untapped offensive ability, the 24-year-old has nevertheless been regressing for more than a full season now. He has just seven points in 34 games and a career-worst minus-6 rating in 2024-25.
Will the Rangers take what seems like an unwarranted leap of faith at this point and sign Miller to a long-term contract when he becomes a restricted free agent again July 1? Or will they decide to trade him while his value, which is tied to his still in-demand potential, remains relatively high?
That’s an issue for the not-too-distant future. In the near term, the question of whether this team can find its way out of the darkness of this season remains very much an open one. The Rangers held their own against one of the NHL’s best, only to suffer their most crushing defeat of their first 40 games.
The matchup with the Stars was the opener of a brutal gauntlet of schedule for the Rangers. After hosting the Devils, they embark on a three-game road trip against the Vegas Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche and the Utah Hockey Club (which has gone 1-4-2 in its last seven, but defeated the Rangers 6-5 in overtime Oct. 12). Finding the fortitude to compete the way they did against Dallas, which won its fifth straight, may be a daunting challenge for a team that seems to have lost all the resilience that characterized its 2023-24 season.
At some point, belief will run out for these Rangers. The loss of young center Filip Chytil to another dreaded “upper-body injury” (hopefully not another concussion) during the game represented yet another blow for this beleaguered roster.
Trocheck’s exasperated gesture after Harley’s goal, so out of character for him, and Ryan Lindgren’s smashing of his stick against the goal post following Benn’s overtime winner suggests that time might not be far off.
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