Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury had no interest in starting the season without a captain.
It is not lost on anyone in the NHL that it’s been 53 years since a team without a captain won the Stanley Cup. Especially not Drury, who enjoyed a 12-year career as a player before he joined the Rangers front office in 2015-16.
In what new head coach Mike Sullivan described as an “extensive process,” as well as in collaboration with the leadership group, the Rangers landed on J.T. Miller as their 29th captain.
“Well, I played a long time. Mike’s played a long time,” Drury said Wednesday in the first news conference of training camp alongside Sullivan. “I think where this organization is at and where this team is at, I think it’s an important role for a team. I really do. For us and for me and the process we went through throughout the organization since Mike was hired in trying to make sure we got the choice right.
“If we didn’t have the right person, we weren’t just going to name anybody just to say we have a ‘C.’ We felt we had a lot of good choices and J.T. rose to the top of that list for us.”
Even though Sullivan hasn’t even been on the ice with the whole team just yet, the new bench boss sounded very comfortable with the decision to name Miller captain. His most recent experience with Miller at the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February certainly played a role in that ease.
But Sullivan also overlapped with a rookie Miller for one season when he was an assistant with the Rangers in 2012-13.
“We thought it was the perfect time to do it, right before obviously the start of camp,” Drury said. “We didn’t have any interest in starting camp without one. We obviously thought he was a terrific choice. He goes over the boards looking to get into the fight and drags people into it. That’s what we need.”
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
Braden Schneider, who underwent shoulder surgery at the end of last season, is not going to play in the team’s intrasquad scrimmages during training camp. He is expected to skate in a different color jersey, but Drury assured that Schneider can give and receive contact.
Barring a setback, Schneider is set to play in two of the last three preseason games.
Drury declined to get into the current state of negotiations with Artemi Panarin, who will be in need of a new contract at the end of this season.
“He’s a huge piece of our team and our organization,” Drury said. “He does not appear, to me, to be slowing down. He takes offseasons serious, he looks like he’s in great shape.”
Brandon Scanlin suffered a foot injury this summer, so the 26-year-old defenseman won’t be available for camp.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
