K'Andre Miller Impressing in First Year at Wisconsin

Tony Granato has known K'Andre Miller for years now, so there isn't a whole lot that's going to surprise the head coach at Wisconsin about his prized blueline recruit. But now that Miller has finally made it to Madison, Granato is witnessing firsthand that he is not the type of kid who wastes time dipping his toe in the water.
"No, he is all in," Granato told NYRangers.com. "That's one really nice thing about our freshman class, they all have the same mentality: They fear nothing. They're not intimidated by anything. K'Andre is an enormous part of that."
Granato's team opened its 2018-19 season with a pair of weekend games, Oct. 12 and 13, at Boston College. In the second period of Friday's opener, Miller took a pass from Peter Tischke, Wisconsin's captain, walked in from the blue line and fired home his first collegiate goal and Wisconsin's first tally of the season in a 3-0 win, en route to a season-opening sweep of the then-No. 12 Eagles.

And he has his head coach already discussing Miller in the same breath as the Wisconsin program's proud tradition of producing defensemen.
Asked when Miller first jumped onto his radar, Granato said, "As soon as I got the job - seriously. … He was the one name that right away we identified - him and his partner, Ty Emberson (also a freshman). We said if we're going to rebuild this program we're going to rebuild it around defense. We have a great history of great defensemen coming through here, and those were the two guys that we targeted saying they have the potential to fit the mold and represent our program the way those other guys did."

That's a remarkably high ceiling for a kid who, not even three years ago, had never played the position before. It was during his sophomore year at Minnetonka High School in Minnesota - the year before he left to spend two years with the U.S. National Team Development Program - that Miller's coach, Brian Urick, floated the idea of moving Miller from forward back to the blue line.
It was not love at first shift.
"I didn't really like it at first, so I went back to forward for a little bit," Miller told NYRangers.com. "I went back to forward and bounced back a couple times. I just wasn't really getting it at first.
"But then I tried it again and I thought I did a really good job of just adjusting and really changing my game. So it was pretty cool to see my, I guess you'd say to see my development. I'm pretty happy I stuck with it."
Miller now says he likes to model his game after, among others, Columbus' Seth Jones - "a great American hockey player with offensive and defensive abilities." Granato has never seen Miller play forward, but if having Miller play the back end means a coach can have him out on the ice for more minutes each game, "Yeah, I see why you do it," the coach said. "The skill set and the way he thinks the game, that makes sense to me now that I see it."
"The change, and how he handled the change, is really incredible," said Granato, who broke into the NHL with the Rangers as a rookie left winger in 1988 and now is in his third season as bench boss at his alma mater. "He went from playing high school forward to playing U.S. Developmental Team defense, and playing against the best players in the world at his age level at a different position. I think that says a lot not only about his athleticism but about his commitment and love for the game. You've got to love the game to really be able to pull off what he did.
"I think it's a great story, and I think it says a lot about his character and who he is."
It was that character, to say nothing of Miller's reach and size (6-4, 210 pounds), supreme skating ability ("with ease and with grace," Granato said) and big shot that drew the Rangers to him. Back in June, General Manager Jeff Gorton shipped a pair of picks to the Ottawa Senators to move into the No. 22 spot and grab Miller.
"The fact a team wants you badly enough to trade up for you, it means so much," Miller said. "That was a very special moment to experience that with my mom, and my family members. I really have no words for it. It was unbelievable, to be drafted by the New York Rangers was unbelievable."

But until the time comes when Miller is ready for the next step, Granato will be thrilled to have him in Madison, where Miller was won over by Granato and his coaching staff and "the culture here," choosing to commit to Wisconsin over North Dakota - which happens to be the Badgers' opponent this weekend for a back-to-back in Grand Forks.
Miller said he's "looking forward to seeing how we match up against them," and UND can look forward to seeing plenty of the one that got away over the weekend: Granato has added to Miller's plate the special-teams opportunities that he didn't get much of at the National Team Development Program, and Miller said the power-play time suits his attack mentality just fine.
"He's still learning the position but he's way far ahead of most people at 18 years old at that position," Granato said of Miller playing the blue line. "He thinks the game well, he's a student of the game, he's one of those kids who's coachable where you tell him something once and he gets it. You can't ask any more of a player - when you're a coach you look for certain characteristics and qualities in a kid as a person, and if you look at K'Andre you've got about as coachable a kid as you could ever have.
"He's only been on campus for a couple months, but he's made a huge impact on our program and on our university in a very short period of time. He's been sensational. The kid has been everything you could ever ask for."
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