LD K'Andre Miller (2018, 22nd, NYR)

[Breakers]

Imagine not wanting your prospect to develop with an incoming freshman class of Alex Turcotte and Cole Cauflied.

yeah that sounds terrible.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Because he still has plenty of things he needs to work on, again, I've posted on what I've seen (what he's doing well, what he needs to improve to become an NHL player) from game to game at length and I've told you where that is, you're free to go and find it. But to say "His offense is still mostly free points from being big, a great skater and playing on the PP" and "still has questionable defending in transition and decision making in breaking out the puck" is objectively false.

Believe it or not, you aren't the only person who watches hockey. You are entitled to disagree with my opinion, but it isn't a factual matter.

Besides, I remember being told after one season in the NHL with inflated point totals and pretty average play that Skjei was the second coming of McDonagh. You'd be attacked if you said otherwise. It was pointed out that a lot of his points were not high-skill plays, and were either "good skater points" or secondary assists. I think Miller's skill level is certainly up for debate. Being typed as having "a lot of tools" or "potential" doesn't automatically mean you have high-level attributes in your game that will be such in the NHL. I like to speak in specifics about these players skill-sets, not generalities.

I gave my opinion about where his game needs to improve and what I saw from what I watched this season. If you'd like to specifically disagree with any of that, go ahead.

 

[Fireonk]

Believe it or not, you aren't the only person who watches hockey. You are entitled to disagree with my opinion, but it isn't a factual matter.

Besides, I remember being told after one season in the NHL with inflated point totals and pretty average play that Skjei was the second coming of McDonagh. You'd be attacked if you said otherwise. It was pointed out that a lot of his points were not high-skill plays, and were either "good skater points" or secondary assists. I think Miller's skill level is certainly up for debate. Being typed as having "a lot of tools" or "potential" doesn't automatically mean you have high-level attributes in your game that will be such in the NHL. I like to speak in specifics about these players skill-sets, not generalities.

I gave my opinion about where his game needs to improve and what I saw from what I watched this season. If you'd like to specifically disagree with any of that, go ahead.

Umm, he did. Which instead of debating you decided to try and claim that people were saying he's so good that he has nothing left to work on. Which I haven't seen anyone make the claim. Now you want to try and circle back to try and pretend he didn't actually bring up specific points.

You seem to be more interested in clawing your way back from looking wrong as opposed to having an actual discussion.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Believe it or not, you aren't the only person who watches hockey. You are entitled to disagree with my opinion, but it isn't a factual matter.

Besides, I remember being told after one season in the NHL with inflated point totals and pretty average play that Skjei was the second coming of McDonagh. You'd be attacked if you said otherwise. It was pointed out that a lot of his points were not high-skill plays, and were either "good skater points" or secondary assists. I think Miller's skill level is certainly up for debate. Being typed as having "a lot of tools" or "potential" doesn't automatically mean you have high-level attributes in your game that will be such in the NHL. I like to speak in specifics about these players skill-sets, not generalities.

I gave my opinion about where his game needs to improve and what I saw from what I watched this season. If you'd like to specifically disagree with any of that, go ahead.

I did, but if you want to keep arguing with yourself about points no one is making, then by all means keep going on

 

[Digitalbooya]

Those aren't good comparisons. Late birthdays should be compared to late birthdays and early birthdays should be compared to early birthdays.

Hughes played his first season as a draft eligible. He's a late birthday. Makar did play two seasons. He's also a late birthday, so he was older than Miller during his freshman season. Makar also didn't play that well in his freshman season. I remember there being a lot of complaints about the team around him. He played extremely well in the WJC that season. Thats almost the opposite of Miller, who had a good NCAA season and bad WJC.

If Miller shows development in his game during his second season like Makar did, that would be great, but the comparisons make no sense. And even if you wanted to compare him to those players, neither of those players were so great their first season that you could've said they don't have further development left before they are NHL ready. Most D+1 players still have a lot of development left. Somehow Miller doesn't, according to you, but he's going back for another season at Wisconsin. If Miller was as great as you want to portray, he'd be in the NHL next season.

Quote me where I said that. All those mental hoops to jump through to form that good ol' opinion of yours...

Tell me, how many games did you watch? Based on your posts it can't be many...

Some points:
"his scoring dried up late on in the season"
-Miller's first 13 games: 2g 7a 9pts 35 shots
-Miller's last 13 games: 3g 10a 13pts 23 shots
Conclusion: Couldn't even get the stats rights. Unless, you are counting the games in which he was injured? He missed the last 9 games of the season and playoffs. Surely you wouldn't be including those?

"mediocre WJC"
Quinn Hughes: 7GP 0g 2a 2pts
K'Andre Miller: 6GP 0g 1a 1pt
Conclusion: small sample. U.S. team leader in points from the blueline was a 4th round pick. Definitely better than Hughes or Miller, right? Wrong.

"If you only went by point totals, you’d think he was one of the best defensemen in the NCAA"
Response: He's no Cale Makar, I can be sure of that.

"His offense is still mostly free points from being big, a great skater and playing on the PP. "
Response: Bullshit statement. Find me a guy that doesn't benefit from at least 1 or 2 of the things you just listed off. I mean, you're gonna knock the guy for having a big frame and using that to his advantage? Nobody gets free points for being big or being good at skating. Players use those traits to their advantage to EARN their points. I see that as positive. You see that as a negative or at least that is how it was implied. Show me a top prospect that does not benefit from playing on the power play.

Regarding positioning: He just switched to playing defense not too long ago. Give it time and development. His transition defense isn't even that bad. It's being in the right place in the d-zone that has been an issue and part of that is the fact that out of Wisconsin's 6 starters on D, 5 of them were lefties.

 

[Digitalbooya]

Imagine not wanting your prospect to develop with an incoming freshman class of Alex Turcotte and Cole Cauflied.

yeah that sounds terrible.

Or a former NHL coach. Or an assistant coach that recruited and developed Ryan McDonagh and a list of other NHL defensemen.

 

[IamNotADancer]

Aaaahhh... I see the "don't post videos of a forward unless he scores in those videos" poster is in full force again giving us his expertise.

What a gem he is.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

I don’t understand your point. Are those players not tall and heavy? They were better than Miller at the NTDP. It’s not unrealistic that they could be better NHL’ers, and I think they will be.

But I’m a Rangers fan, so hopefully I’m wrong. Some of these prospect threads don’t give you a good picture of a players development. You see only positive posts in this thread. There’s not much mention that Miller had a mediocre WJC, his scoring dried up late on in the season and his season wasn’t as impressive as the point totals indicated. If you only went by point totals, you’d think he was one of the best defensemen in the NCAA, but he wasn’t from what I saw.

Definitely a good season for Miller, but he’s still far from a finished product. His offense is still mostly free points from being big, a great skater and playing on the PP. Does he have the offensive skill to be a consistent point scorer in the NHL? His defense is also far from lock down. He’s improved his defending when inside his own zone, but still has questionable defending in transition and decision making in breaking out the puck or directly causing offense for the other team with bad pinches and positioning when his team has the puck.

It’s good that he’s going back to Wisconsin, and hopefully he can continue rounding out his game.

I've got some good news for you, man.

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

Those aren't good comparisons. Late birthdays should be compared to late birthdays and early birthdays should be compared to early birthdays.

Hughes played his first season as a draft eligible. He's a late birthday. Makar did play two seasons. He's also a late birthday, so he was older than Miller during his freshman season. Makar also didn't play that well in his freshman season. I remember there being a lot of complaints about the team around him. He played extremely well in the WJC that season. Thats almost the opposite of Miller, who had a good NCAA season and bad WJC.

If Miller shows development in his game during his second season like Makar did, that would be great, but the comparisons make no sense. And even if you wanted to compare him to those players, neither of those players were so great their first season that you could've said they don't have further development left before they are NHL ready. Most D+1 players still have a lot of development left. Somehow Miller doesn't, according to you, but he's going back for another season at Wisconsin. If Miller was as great as you want to portray, he'd be in the NHL next season.

Why do you even bother?

You have consistently provided terrible analysis to the point where no one likes seeing you pop up in NYR threads.

You had to stop posting in HF NYR bc of how universally unpopular your analysis is. Just so you can't claim we're "just mad you're not on the bandwagon" Even when your intent is to speak positively about a NYR prospect your opinion is so awful it turns off everyone. Here's an example

Aaaahhh... I see the "don't post videos of a forward unless he scores in those videos" poster is in full force again giving us his expertise.

What a gem he is.

You DID do that, embarassing yourself completely. You didn't want people to think ill of a Russian prospect bc we were showing him making plays that were great but didn't result in points. This suggests you value points and are clueless about how you can analyze more about a players game than points.

Yet, here you claim posters are only looking at Miller's numbers and ignoring things that don't show up on the score sheet.

Why discuss things that aren't on the score sheet? According to you, anything that isn't realted to points should be avoided, right? DOn't want people to have a negative view of the prospect, right?

Of course you had an initially negative view of the Miller pick.

So is it that you change narratives to reinforce your bias? You want Kravtsov to only ever shine bright so you can crow about the prospect you liked. So nothing besides scoring highlights should ever show up. With Miller though, you complain that "only positive things show up about him in this thread which paints an incomplete picture of him".

The mountain of hypocrisy and inconsistency can frustrate people. Add in the possible agenda behind it and this is why people do not trust your hockey analysis at all.

 

[Goldenhands]

If he's as good as you think, why's he not going to play in the NHL next season?

I think you might be confusing your fandom and your opinion of his potential with production.

When I was watching the NTDP, I said numerous times that Miller was pretty raw and would need time, on another hand, I was pretty high on his potential since his IQ, skating, physical tools and understanding of the D position for a guy who was playing foward not that long ago, was amazing... An example of his smarts, the way he was breaking plays in the neutral zone and at the blueline, you just couldnt enter the zone on his side with the puck on your stick, you had to drop it deep in the zone where Miller was first there anyway using his amazing strength to get rid of the forechecker rather easily... A guy like Samuelsson for example, as big as he is, was often in trouble when forecheckers were coming on him too quickly while Miller was rolling with the hits, using his reach, strength, smart to get rid of that pressure and make the safe play, another example of his high IQ... Miller's mix of skating, gap control and physicality are making him the best defenseman in that draft at defending on the rush, the advanced stats are there to prove it...

Bode Wilde, well, it took me about 2 games to figure out he had the IQ of a jellyfish...

I agree that Miller didnt have a great WJC though, was handling the puck like a hot potatoe, he didnt look ready or very confident for the tournament but he isnt the only D+1 kid to struggle at the WJC, I expect him to be an impact player next year, just need to work on his stickhandling and puck skills more...

Personally, I was projecting Miller as a future 2nd pairing beast, a kid that can do a bit of everything on the ice, including crushing some guys pretty hard, but didnt exclude the possibility of him to become a top pairing guy since I thought there was alot of growing potential with this kid... One thing is for sure to me, this kid will easily end up as the best NTDP defenseman of the 3 and its not even close...

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I did, but if you want to keep arguing with yourself about points no one is making, then by all means keep going on

So now you are going to play dumb or did you miss the context of what I initially replied to?

If someone is trying to take a shot at some of Miller's former NTDP teammates, one of which rates extremely high by nearly everyone offensively and one as extremely high by nearly everyone defensively, clearly there's some reason why they would laugh at a suggestion that they could be better than Miller.

Miller often, and the person I initially replied to said as much that Miller is some "full skillset" type of defensemen. A lot of people like to compare him to Seth Jones, which is racist to begin with, but besides that, he gets compared to players who are considered 1D's with every skill for the position. I tend to think that its not an accurate picture of his current game, and I explained why.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Quote me where I said that. All those mental hoops to jump through to form that good ol' opinion of yours...

Here you are.

I shook my head reading most of what they wrote. You can tell they haven't watched him play for maybe more than a couple games.

I explain what I think of his current game, and you say that what I said shows I'm ignorant. If the areas of the game where I said he could improve on he doesn't need to improve on, he must not need to improve on anything. That would make him one of the best defensemen in the world.

Tell me, how many games did you watch? Based on your posts it can't be many...

I've seen close to 10 games this year.

There are people around here that claim they have knowledge that they don't. I'm pretty clear about what I do and don't have knowledge about. If you read my posts, you'd know that.

Some points:
"his scoring dried up late on in the season"
-Miller's first 13 games: 2g 7a 9pts 35 shots
-Miller's last 13 games: 3g 10a 13pts 23 shots
Conclusion: Couldn't even get the stats rights. Unless, you are counting the games in which he was injured? He missed the last 9 games of the season and playoffs. Surely you wouldn't be including those?

Thats exactly what I'm referring to. We heard all year that he was having a great season most of all due to the fact he was leading the team in points. That was the first thing that people would bring up, disregarding if he dominated as much as his points indicated. Some stopped using that once he wasn't the leader for the team in points. It's not a knock on him. It's a knock on the people who instantly went to that.

"mediocre WJC"
Quinn Hughes: 7GP 0g 2a 2pts
K'Andre Miller: 6GP 0g 1a 1pt
Conclusion: small sample. U.S. team leader in points from the blueline was a 4th round pick. Definitely better than Hughes or Miller, right? Wrong.

Quinn Hughes was terrible at the WJC. I said that during the tournament and said it after.

I think any neutral observer would say that Miller struggled during the WJC. I've yet to see many people argue he was good at that tournament.

"His offense is still mostly free points from being big, a great skater and playing on the PP. "
Response: Bull**** statement. Find me a guy that doesn't benefit from at least 1 or 2 of the things you just listed off. I mean, you're gonna knock the guy for having a big frame and using that to his advantage? Nobody gets free points for being big or being good at skating. Players use those traits to their advantage to EARN their points. I see that as positive. You see that as a negative or at least that is how it was implied. Show me a top prospect that does not benefit from playing on the power play.

I'm not knocking him for points in college hockey. I specifically talked about things that translate to the best league in the world.

I would be a lot more enthusiastic about his point totals if they were from skill plays, as opposed to basic plays with the puck in transition or making a simple play on the PP. There are a lot of goals scored in lower level leagues that don't happen in the NHL.

I've been watching Miller for years. On the offensive side of the game, I would say his ability to rush the puck and his wrist shot are parts of the game that will translate well offensively in the NHL. The rest of his game is very basic offensively, which is why I compared it to Skjei. Defensemen without high-end skill usually do not play on the PP in the NHL. Or if they do, its on the second unit. Therefore, less points. Unless Miller improves his skill level and ability to create scoring chances, I see him as not being a big offense guy in the NHL. If he's going to be this "unlimited tools player", like he gets typed as, he's going to need to improve that area of his game.

Regarding positioning: He just switched to playing defense not too long ago. Give it time and development. His transition defense isn't even that bad. It's being in the right place in the d-zone that has been an issue and part of that is the fact that out of Wisconsin's 6 starters on D, 5 of them were lefties.

Are you a relative of his? If so, we can stop the discussion here because I'm not trying to argue with family members of prospects.

I said that he has some areas to improve on, and what you'd think if you only read this thread is not a complete picture of where his game is at. I didn't say he can't or won't improve.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Umm, he did. Which instead of debating you decided to try and claim that people were saying he's so good that he has nothing left to work on. Which I haven't seen anyone make the claim. Now you want to try and circle back to try and pretend he didn't actually bring up specific points.

You seem to be more interested in clawing your way back from looking wrong as opposed to having an actual discussion.

What is there to debate from how he replied? He didn't explain why I was wrong on anything specific about Miller's game that I mentioned. He told me he disagreed, and then said I was objectively false. Thats not what you do if you want to debate the argument.

Besides, what do you have to do with this argument? You clearly seem offended by my opinion, so now you are trying to attack me. You didn't even address anything I said specifically in my initial post. I have nothing to claw back from, and nothing more to say towards you, if you just want to agitate instead of discuss the content of Miller's game.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

So now you are going to play dumb or did you miss the context of what I initially replied to?

If someone is trying to take a shot at some of Miller's former NTDP teammates, one of which rates extremely high by nearly everyone offensively and one as extremely high by nearly everyone defensively, clearly there's some reason why they would laugh at a suggestion that they could be better than Miller.

Miller often, and the person I initially replied to said as much that Miller is some "full skillset" type of defensemen. A lot of people like to compare him to Seth Jones, which is racist to begin with, but besides that, he gets compared to players who are considered 1D's with every skill for the position. I tend to think that its not an accurate picture of his current game, and I explained why.

I don't care what the context was, I was replying to you to say that some specific evaluations of his game from you were off, I bolded them when quoting your post if you didn't expand it to see, but then I also copied them into another post.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I don't care what the context was, I was replying to you to say that some specific evaluations of his game from you were off

I know that, and we had a back and forth about that.

You then proceeded to say this. Look at the bolded.

I did, but if you want to keep arguing with yourself about points no one is making, then by all means keep going on

That was my point in the most recent post. I don't care if you disagree about Miller's game. I hope my assessment is wrong, and yours is right.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

I know that, and we had a back and forth about that.

You then proceeded to say this. Look at the bolded.



That was my point in the most recent post. I don't care if you disagree about Miller's game. I hope my assessment is wrong, and yours is right.

Here are the things you've seemed to infer from posts that I haven't seen anyone else claim since that original post with the tweet:

If he's as good as you think, why's he not going to play in the NHL next season?

Most D+1 players still have a lot of development left. Somehow Miller doesn't

In reading all of this again, you seem to have started an argument with amalgamations of posts from months ago. But now I feel like we're pulling pretty far off topic.

But since this is the K'andre Miller thread, I might as well say here what I've said somewhere over on the Rangers board: I'm planning on recording and making shift by shift videos for most of Miller's game this season along with continuing to do little write ups of what I'm seeing while the game is going on, when I do those I'll post them here to so we all can share in the fun of talking about what he does well and what he needs to work on

 

[Fireonk]

What is there to debate from how he replied? He didn't explain why I was wrong on anything specific about Miller's game that I mentioned. He told me he disagreed, and then said I was objectively false. Thats not what you do if you want to debate the argument.

Besides, what do you have to do with this argument? You clearly seem offended by my opinion, so now you are trying to attack me. You didn't even address anything I said specifically in my initial post. I have nothing to claw back from, and nothing more to say towards you, if you just want to agitate instead of discuss the content of Miller's game.

I didn't attack you, I attacked your argument. You created a strawman, no one implied that Miller was so good currently that he has nothing left to work on. You then tried to seemingly ignore the fact that he fully did "specifically disagree with any of that"

I think it's great that you have a different opinion than others, that's why I come to these boards. But you trying to create a stance to argue against that no one actually took makes things go off the rails.

As for my opinion of Miller, in admittedly limited viewings, is that he has the potential to be a top pairing defender. I don't see the vision or creativity for him to ever turn into an elite offensive Dman, but with his speed and size he will find ways to get on the board by just turning the puck moving the other way. My major concern I have seen with him, and again limited viewings, is he can get lost in the defensive zone and seems to be unsure of where he should be going when his man doesn't have the puck. That should be one of the easier things to learn, especially based on the reports of his work ethic and character, but also because he hasn't played D for very long. However, obviously if he doesn't improve on that aspect...well its kind of important as a defender.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Besides, what do you have to do with this argument? You clearly seem offended by my opinion, so now you are trying to attack me. You didn't even address anything I said specifically in my initial post. I have nothing to claw back from, and nothing more to say towards you, if you just want to agitate instead of discuss the content of Miller's game.

Stop crying every time someone challenges you. It's not an attack.

 

[MichaelFarrell]

Really hoping he does another year with the badgers. I’m going to watch the Badgers play at PSU next season and seeing Turcotte, Caufield, Dhooghe and Miller would be sick.

 

[EpicDing]

Really hoping he does another year with the badgers. I’m going to watch the Badgers play at PSU next season and seeing Turcotte, Caufield, Dhooghe and Miller would be sick.

He already confirmed he's going back this year

 

[Lays]

So now you are going to play dumb or did you miss the context of what I initially replied to?

If someone is trying to take a shot at some of Miller's former NTDP teammates, one of which rates extremely high by nearly everyone offensively and one as extremely high by nearly everyone defensively, clearly there's some reason why they would laugh at a suggestion that they could be better than Miller.

Miller often, and the person I initially replied to said as much that Miller is some "full skillset" type of defensemen. A lot of people like to compare him to Seth Jones, which is racist to begin with, but besides that, he gets compared to players who are considered 1D's with every skill for the position. I tend to think that its not an accurate picture of his current game, and I explained why.

K’Andre compares himself to Seth Jones. Not sure how it’s racist

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

K’Andre compares himself to Seth Jones. Not sure how it’s racist

I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the people who compare every black player to another black player. This happens in every sport. If there’s a skilled white big man in basketball from the USA, they get compared to Kevin Love. If there’s a five tool black center fielder in baseball, they get compared to Andrew McCutchen.

People can also be racist against their own race, but that’s getting too far off this topic, so I digress.

 

[Lays]

Stars n’ Stripes Hockey on Twitter
I think he’s been fantastic so far in the WJSS. He’s still underrated around here but he’s up to 6’5 now and he can skate like the wind. I also really like how aggressive he is defensively and if he gets beat, he can use his skating+reach to get back into position. Incredible upside

 

[TopShelfWaterBottle]

Anaheim wanted him really bad sucks N.Y. swooped

 

[ecemleafs]

Anaheim wanted him really bad sucks N.Y. swooped

It's why we swooped!!!