The New York Rangers continue to face uncertainty (to put it mildly) this season. Once again, captain J.T. Miller has succumbed to the injury bug, landing on IR.
Miller has hit the shelf a couple of times this season, limiting him to 51 games so far. While he’s been all right in those games, scoring 14 goals and 38 points, he hasn’t been the consummate leader everyone expected him to be this season.
Plus, given the way the Rangers’ season is going, it really doesn’t make any sense for the Rangers to hold their breath on Miller. The club should just go ahead and shut him down for the remainder of the season.
Placing Miller on LTIR for the rest of the season would, if anything, give the Rangers some extra cap space to bring up players who could gain some valuable NHL experience down the stretch. Since it’s clear the Rangers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, the wisest thing could be to just let Miller recover at this point.
The Rangers aren’t playing for much at this point. While pride is still on the line, the club has to be practical for once. That’s why shutting Miller down at this point would just make life easier on everyone.
Rangers star not only Olympian in injury trouble
One of the discussions coming out of the Olympics was the possibility of players getting shut down following the tourney. There were several players (unfortunately, we don’t know exactly who) who gritted through the tournament.
One of the names tossed around was Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon. He hasn’t missed time, but was rumored to be hurt during the tourney.
Sidney Crosby has also been shut down for now following a significant injury in Milano-Cortina. There’s also Mark Stone of the Vegas Golden Knights. He returned to the Knights’ lineup, but has recently gone down.
That’s why it wouldn’t be surprising to see Miller dealing with something well before the Olympics. As such, Miller could just be feeling the after-effects of gritting through such a tough and compressed tourney.
There’s one other thing to keep in mind. Miller might want to get back on the ice as soon as possible, not so much because the team is playing for a playoff spot, but because of pride. Yes, pride is important, but there should be a limit to how much the Rangers should push the envelope this season.
Ultimately, it would be great for the club to have its captain run out the season on a high note. But if that becomes unreasonable, the best course of action might just be to shut things down and run it back next season.