By AARON BEARD AP Sports Writer
K’Andre Miller kept his phone off and avoided social media in recent weeks with his future uncertain after five seasons with the New York Rangers.
Now, he’s eager to jump into the Carolina Hurricanes’ aggressive system.
The Hurricanes acquired the 25-year-old former first-round pick to bolster their blue line and gave him a long-term contract Tuesday, the first official day of free agency. He joins a team that has made seven straight playoff trips and is coming off a third trip to the Eastern Conference final in that span.
Carolina has a headlining defenseman in Jaccob Slavin, but is retooling that group with veterans Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov unlikely to return. The tweaks trading away defenseman Scott Morrow — a rising prospect pressed into playoff duty due to injuries — and draft picks to New York to land Miller.
“They have such a fast team,” Miller said Wednesday in a Zoom call with reporters. “They get up and down the ice in a fast motion and they do everything as a team. It’s a fun group to watch and they’ve had a lot of success recently. So I’m excited to join that style of game, and they have a great team over there.”
The Hurricanes project the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Miller as a strong fit with his size and skating ability. They’re counting on him to bolster a system that relies on an aggressive forecheck to pressure opponents, get control of the puck and keep it to maintain pressure in the offensive zone.
The Hurricanes are betting Miller is still on the rise, handing him an eight-year contract paying an average annual value of $7.5 million through the 2032-33 season.
There were certainly flashes of it with the Rangers as a regular Metropolitan Division foe for the Hurricanes. The No. 22 overall pick in 2018 by the Rangers has played at least 74 regular-season games for four straight seasons, including posting 17 goals and 56 assists for 73 points over the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.
But his play fell off last season as he went from looking like a Rangers building block to expendable, coming amid New York’s overall crash from Presidents’ Trophy winner in 2024 to six points out of a wild-card playoff spot this year.
Afterward, Miller tried to tune out “all the speculation and kind of noise and uncertainty with New York.” That meant focusing instead on getting stronger and getting mentally prepared for what’s next.
And now, that’s a new start.
“I think there was a lot of noise throughout the season,” Miller said. “So I think it was definitely in the back of my head that something could happen, might happen. I loved my time in New York and it was great, but I’m excited for what’s to come in Carolina.”