Colin Miller is a gamble, which is appropriate given his future destination.
Miller, acquired by the Bruins from Los Angeles in the Milan Lucic trade, will belong to the Vegas Golden Knights’ inaugural expansion draft class, at least for one night. If the 24-year-old settles down his game, makes clearer decisions, and heeds the counsel of new coach Gerard Gallant, Miller will be one of Vegas’s better additions.
It’s also possible the Golden Knights flip Miller for future assets. Teams like nimble right-shot defensemen, especially those earning $1 million in 2017-18. That trade could happen as soon as Thursday morning, when the leaguewide freeze lifts at 8 a.m.
All those variables are, of course, rolls of the dice.
The Bruins saw the same promise the Golden Knights identified in Miller. For two seasons, the Bruins tried to convince Miller to express the strengths of his game — fleet feet, puck-pushing pace, a hard if regularly misguided slap shot — while minimizing his weaknesses. Miller did so in spurts. But not for extended segments.
Under Claude Julien, Miller averaged 16:27 of ice time per game in 2016-17. The ex-coach made Miller a healthy scratch nine times.
The defenseman impressed Bruce Cassidy even less. Under his new coach, Miller’s ice time dipped to 14:41 per game. Cassidy scratched Miller four times, including in Games No. 80 and 81. Miller may have started the playoffs out of uniform had Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo been healthy.
Miller did not improve to the degree where the Bruins felt he was worth protecting more than Kevan Miller. The latter does not have the former’s effortless puck-moving touch or offensive confidence to walk the blue line and pound the puck. But Kevan Miller’s hard skating, hard checking, and hard approach made it hard for the Bruins to give up on a sure thing, albeit one with a lower ceiling than Colin Miller.
Had he been protected, it’s possible Colin Miller would have developed to the standard the Bruins once projected. But the Bruins believed he was worth exposing because of their unusual position of strength, at least in terms of numbers.
Most NHL defensemen are left shots. Five of Pittsburgh’s six primary defensemen during their second Stanley Cup run, for example, were left shots. Justin Schultz was the exception. The Bruins, meanwhile, had both Millers, Carlo, Charlie McAvoy, and Adam McQuaid occupying right-side positions. They could afford to let one of them walk.
Compared with their peers, the Bruins did not suffer significant pain on Wednesday. Vegas general manager George McPhee plundered Anaheim and Minnesota, the teams with the most to lose.
The Ducks had to expose Sami Vatanen and Josh Manson. The Wild could not protect Matt Dumba or Marco Scandella. All four are legitimate, no-questions-asked top-four defensemen. Miller does not yet belong to this category.
Yet McPhee kept his hands off all four because of the bounty he received from both clubs. According to TSN, Anaheim GM Bob Murray had to part with Shea Theodore, the Ducks’ first-round pick from 2013, to convince McPhee not to take either of the more talented right-side defensemen. Vegas took Clayton Stoner in expansion instead.
Minnesota GM Chuck Fletcher, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, said goodbye to former Boston College wing Alex Tuch, the No. 18 pick in 2014, for McPhee to lay off Dumba and Scandella. The Wild also lost versatile forward Erik Haula to the Golden Knights. Both of those transactions hurt Anaheim and Minnesota a lot more than the Bruins watching Miller walk for nothing.
Some of this comes down to circumstance. The Bruins would have been in a stickier situation had McAvoy or Carlo not been exempt from exposure because of their first-year status. It always helps to have young players on the roster, but it was especially so in the case of expansion.
Consider the star power of Nik Ehlers, Jack Eichel, Patrik Laine, Dylan Larkin, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, William Nylander, Colton Parayko, Ivan Provorov, Jaccob Slavin, Matthew Tkachuk, and Zach Werenski. None of them had to be protected, allowing their bosses to apply their hands-off safeguards elsewhere. Had McAvoy and Carlo required protection, GM Don Sweeney would have had to give McPhee a pick or prospect to steer clear of the young defensemen.
But it also underscores how the Bruins have yet to build rosters as deep as some of their competitors. Since taking over for Peter Chiarelli after 2014-15, Sweeney’s first fix has been the pipeline. It is looking better.
McAvoy and Carlo are the first to arrive, perhaps both ahead of schedule. The next wave, perhaps the likes of Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson, Jake DeBrusk, Anders Bjork, and Matt Grzelcyk, has yet to land. Restocking the prospect pool takes time.
The Bruins did not enjoy seeing Miller leave for nothing. But Golden Knights owner Bill Foley did not write a $500 million check to fill his first roster with ham-and-eggers. It was the cost the Bruins had to pay to earn their slice of expansion revenue. A lot of teams paid a steeper price.
Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeFluto.
