Role With the Punches : Kings’ Jay Miller Is Fighting the Good Fight to Change Reputation in the NHL

A chuckle was heard ‘round the National Hockey League when, in the same week, Wayne Gretzky of the Kings took a firm and formal stance against fighting while the Kings were making a trade for Jay Miller of Boston, a player whose credentials begin with his records for penalty minutes.

Miller chuckled a little, too, when he read that Gretzky was suggesting slowly initiating some rules against fighting over the next three to five years.

“One way for me to read that would be to say, ‘Great, phase out my job after my career is over,’ ” Miller said. “But another way to read it would be to say, ‘Yeah, right, Gretzky wants us out of the league, but not until his career is over.’

“You’ve got to understand something. Guys like Gretzky--the goal scorers, the finesse players--do not like to be hit. They do not like to be intimidated. They do not like to be pushed around.

“Take away the physical players from his side, and there are going to be physical players on the other side out there trying to take advantage of him. It would take a couple of years off his career if he had to go out there every night and get knocked around by the Lemieuxs of Montreal, the Tocchets of Philadelphia, the Mark Hunters, the Peplinskis, the Ottos.

“My job is to keep those guys off of him. I’ve made a career of it. Maybe we don’t have to drop our gloves every time, but supply and demand says that if one side doesn’t have any so-called ‘role players’ the other side is going to get physical with the goal scorers.”

Jay Miller understands his role and he makes no apologies for it. He knows other roles, but he took on this one quite deliberately.

“Believe it or not, I was a player in college,” Miller said.

While he was earning a degree in business administration at the University of New Hampshire, Miller also played defense and all three forward positions for the college team. When he was drafted by Quebec as a freshman in 1980, he chose to stay in school.

After floating around in the minor leagues for a couple of years, Miller took himself aside and told himself that enough was enough. It was time to concentrate his efforts on a real career in business. He had been selling and maintaining swimming pools in the summer when he was at home in Boston with his parents, and he thought he might develop that business.

That was when it was suggested he could develop a career as a role player in the NHL. After all, he is a strong, 6-foot-2, 210-pound player.

He auditioned for the role by getting into a fight with John Blum 10 minutes into his tryout at the Boston Bruins’ training camp in 1985. When he signed with the Bruins as a free agent that October, there was no question of his responsibilities.

In Boston, Miller established himself as one of the league’s premier tough guys. In his third season, he broke Coach Terry O’Reilly’s club record for penalty minutes, getting 302 minutes in one season. He also broke Derek Sanderson’s club record for penalty minutes in a playoff season with 124.

In his first three seasons as a Bruin he had 11 goals and 16 assists. When he was traded to Los Angeles Jan. 22 he had a career total of 856 penalty minutes and 33 points--a ratio of about 26-to-1.

Since he has been with the Kings, the ratio is not nearly so lopsided. In his 10 games with the Kings he has four goals and one assists for five points. He also has 40 penalty minutes. That’s a ratio of eight-to-one. And he’s even in plus/minus statistics.

He likes that.

“Being traded to the Kings gave me a new lease on life,” Miller said. “It’s not only a change of scene and a lot of great guys, but it’s a winning team, a chance to win a Stanley Cup, it’s all the way out of the division so I don’t have to be up tight about playing against the guys I grew up with, and it’s a team that will give me a chance to play.

“(General Manager) Rogie (Vachon) and (Coach) Robbie (Ftorek) told me that my role here would be a little bit different. I’ll be able to play and protect. In Boston, it was just protect.”

Miller said that his playing time was down to about two shifts a game, partly because the Adams Division isn’t as physical as it once was. He shrugs off the talk that he wasn’t getting along with O’Reilly.

“Any time your playing is down like that, you know to expect a trade,” Miller said. “I was kind of glad when it was L.A.”

That is, if he had to be traded at all from the only NHL team he ever played for in the city where his family lives.

There’s no denying he still has a strong allegiance to the Bruins. He says the two games he played for the Kings against Boston were two of the worst games he has ever played.

There are those who think that Miller was needed in Los Angeles before the playoffs began because Marty McSorley might feel the same way about mixing it up with some of his former Edmonton Oiler teammates.

But what if the Kings were to meet the Boston Bruins in the playoffs?

“That would have to be for the Stanley Cup, and that would be different,” Miller said, brightening at the thought. “Believe me, I’d have no problem with that.”

At 28, Miller is getting near the end of his career. Next year will be his option year, so he’ll have to decide, after this season, where he thinks his future lies.

“My wife (Paula) is staying in Boston for now because she has her own career there, and that leaves me free to put total concentration into playing hockey,” Miller said. “It’s been so long since I’ve really played much, I need to do that.

“Everybody seems to think that there are two norms in hockey--goons and hockey players. Who says somebody can’t do both roles? I’ve shown that I can put the puck in the net. I have 11 points. If I had zero, then you could call me a goon or a cement head.

“I want to get back to playing the way I know I can play. I want to play for the Los Angeles Kings in the future and be a part of what I know is going to be a winning tradition. I know what my role is; Robbie doesn’t have to explain that to me. But the thing I like about the Kings is that they can use me the way I’m supposed to be used and not treat me like a piece of meat--not that I’m saying Boston treated me like a piece of meat.

“I’m just happy to be with a team that is giving me a chance to be a hockey player. A tough, mean, aggressive, hard-checking, maybe even bullyish, hockey player.”