Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller recovering from yet another setback, surgery
By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller just can’t catch a break.
Not one that he’d like, anyway.
Over a year since the 32-year-old broke his kneecap in the B’s penultimate game of the 2018-19 regular season, and still looking to get back on the ice for his first game since that incident (and another break while attempting a comeback), Miller revealed that he recently underwent another surgery following yet another setback.
“I’m still rehabbing,” Miller, who underwent the surgery eight weeks ago, said during a Town Hall video chat with Bruins season-ticket holders on Thursday. “I was on a good trajectory there — I was skating and whatnot — then I had a setback.”
Miller’s confirmation of an additional setback and surgery comes a month after B’s general manager Don Sweeney said Miller would not be available to play even if the league restarts later this year.
“[Miller] needs to get back to being absolutely, fully healthy,” Sweeney said last month. “He’s got a longer timeline to make sure he does things in smaller stages that would afford him the opportunity to be 100 percent healthy and return to play.”
But with multiple setbacks, it seems fair to wonder if Miller is ever going to be 100 percent and play again. In what’s felt like the cruelest fate imaginable, Miller has repeatedly ramped up his activities in a bid to return to game action, only to have a setback knock him back to the bottom of the hill. It happened during the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and then about two or three different times during the 2019-20 season. The Bruins repeatedly stated that they were not going to rush Miller back (and they never did), but even the most patient of timelines have ended with Miller back on the shelf and working through another derailment.
This time around, the 6-foot-2 defender has remained focused on the positives, like the fact that he’s been able to do the majority of his rehab at home in Boston, and that he’s once again on the move on his own.
“Timing wise, things have been good for me,” said Miller. “I’m off crutches and walking around again.”
Miller, who has spent his entire 324-game NHL career with the Bruins following a collegiate career at Vermont, is a pending free agent following a four-year, $10 million deal signed in 2016.
And while the Bruins haven’t ruled out the idea of keeping him around beyond this season, Miller’s year-plus quest for a clean bill of health that puts him back on the ice remains the No. 1 priority.