Kevan Miller isn't 'losing hope' about return, but a grueling rehab is for far more than just a new contract

Tying shoes. Walking up and down stairs. Putting on a pair of jeans. 

These days, it’s all about the little victories for Kevan Miller.

What were once mundane, everyday tasks are now regarded as massive steps forward – bright spots in the midst of a grueling stretch that has seen the rugged defensemen go under the knife four times in the span of 14 months.

His chances of adding his trademark snarl to a motivated, Cup-contending B’s roster were dashed once again earlier this spring — with his latest procedure back in March, putting an end to any hopes of him returning for the 2019-20 campaign. 

Beyond the amount of damage sustained to his knee since that fateful collision into the boards in Minnesota back on April 4, 2019 — Miller’s medical rap sheet still resembles something more akin to a car crash than a pro sports career.

Just in 2018-19 alone, Miller also battled back from a broken hand, torn oblique and cartilage damage to his larynx.

And yet, despite the amount of damage sustained from years of eating pucks and exchanging haymakers with the Bruins, Miller doesn’t intend to hang up his skates anytime soon.

But after spending a year grinding away at rehab — laboring time after time toward a step forward before more bad luck prompted two steps back — the fears of suffering one break too many naturally creep in.

"I'd be lying to you if I wasn’t worried like, 'Hey I don’t know how this is all gonna end up,’” Miller said Wednesday morning via Zoom. "But it's part of my job. It's part of my passion. I want to be healthy, right? I want to play. I know I can help the team. It's a tough pill to swallow, like when you're showing up to the rink and you can't help the guys and it's been so long since you've been able to play a game. But I'm not losing hope on that at all. If anything, it's kind of pushing me to push more, to make sure that I'm doing it the right way to get back out there and try and get back to 100%."

But these days, while the rest of his teammates begin to shake the rust off back on the ice and gear for another Cup run, Miller is taking a step back.

Rather than grind towards certain rehab milestones or harp over dates circled on the calendar, Miller's current focus is centered more on regaining some sense of normalcy — and not in terms of on the ice.

"First and foremost — I want to be able to just function normally here and that's step one," Miller said. "So I'm getting back to that, and then step two is being able to do some things off the ice that I was able to do before."

With a potential return this season ruled out, Miller and his family are settled back in their offseason home in Colorado, close to Dr. Matthew Provencher, who performed both his second and fourth surgeries on his knee. Over three months after his latest procedure, Miller remains optimistic — encouraged by the strides he's made through rehab and hopeful that a return to the ice is not too far away.

"That's kind of where I'm at now — is that, 'Hey, there's no real timeline.' I haven't circled a date," Miller said. "And before, I was circling dates, and now I'm not circling a date and I'm just saying like, 'Hey, we need to get to that next point, that next mark.' I had an X-ray at the three-month mark, which was a few weeks ago. Everything is looking good, everything's moving in the right direction. We have a CAT scan coming up at 6-8 weeks past the X-ray, so another four to six weeks. And that'll really tell where I'm at. And then from there, we can look at — I have to start strength training and getting back to that and then eventually I'll be able to look at where we are on the ice."

Miller isn't concerned with timelines these days, but it's tough to ignore what looms in the future for the defenseman — as he's set to become an unrestricted free agent whenever this extended 2019-20 campaign is concluded. Still, the NHL remains secondary to Miller's primary concerns these days.

"To be honest with you, I haven't had any discussions with my agent," Miller said. "I'm sure my agent has had discussions with the Bruins. I'm sure they talk. I just ask that, you know, I don't really want to know or deal with that right now. I just want to focus on getting healthy off the ice and then once I'm able to do that, then I could start to think about on-ice stuff and that's just my goal — is to get back to being 100% healthy off the ice and then I can kind of worry about on the ice."

Even with the amount of setbacks and punishment that Miller has suffered over the years, it'd be unwise to bet against the tenacious blueliner when it comes to resuming his playing career in the future. The Bruins' nominee for the 2019-20 Masterton Trophy — awarded annually "to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey" — Miller isn't planning on changing his stingy, hard-nosed style of play once he finally does get the green light to return. Nor does it appear that the fire fueling him internally is waning any time soon.

"I don't have another identity to be honest with you, especially on the ice. That's who I am," Miller said. "Who I am on the ice is who I am off the ice. Maybe a little softer off the ice. But I think that's my kind of my bread and butter. I don't think that I'm going to go out there and score 50 goals. But I think the biggest mental challenge for me is just getting healthy between the ears, right? Because it's taken some toll on me for sure.

"Like the physical trauma is also mental trauma — I'll be honest with you about that. So I think the mental side of it for me is just being able to (say), 'Hey, I'm not injured anymore. That year and four months, year and five months, whatever it's been, is now behind me.' Feeling 100% again, is going to feel probably pretty abnormal to me right now. So I think that's probably going to be the biggest challenge."