Donnelly: The Bruins are, thankfully, done with Mitchell Miller after reported February settlement

It appears Mitchell Miller hasn't been on the Bruins' books for all this time, after all.

Boston invited all sorts of unnecessary scorn and vitriol – rightfully so – when it signed Miller to a three-year, entry-level contract with an $861,667 average annual value on Nov. 4, 2022. The contract was the largest sum the then 20-year-old could have been eligible for.

For two days, a needless sideshow threatened to throw a wrench into the Bruins' torrid start to the season as the B's rolled into the media circus of Toronto with an 11-1 record. Players were thrown to the proverbial wolves, forced to answer for the organization after Don Sweeney talked in circles around the signing. 

“It invited a lot of negativity that, quite frankly, we didn’t need, didn’t want," Sweeney admitted to reporters at the time before opining about second chances. "I felt that if other teams were going to be willing to give — and I'm not gonna speak for other teams — if they were willing to give him the chance. I think we all have to look in the mirror and say, ‘Why wouldn't we be willing to give him a chance?’"

Sweeney also said at the time Boston's leadership group pushed back on the decision to bring aboard a player like Miller, who has quite the haunting skeleton in his closet. To recap, Miller pled guilty at age 14 to charges resulting of his repeated, racist abuse and bullying of a developmentally disabled classmate, Isaiah Meyer-Crothers. 

The Bruins' top voices within the locker room, including Patrice Bergeron and Nick Foligno, continued their pushback when speaking to the media in Toronto that weekend.  

“It’s not something anyone in this room stands for,” Foligno told reporters on that Saturday. “The culture we’ve built and these guys have built before I got here is one of inclusion. I think it goes against that. I understand he was 14 when he made this mistake. But it’s hard for us to swallow. Because we take a lot of pride in here in the way we act, the way we carry ourselves, what it is to be a Bruin. So that was a tough thing to hear for our group.  

“I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t think any guy was too happy because of how proud we are to say this is a group that cares a lot about ourselves, how we carry ourselves and how we treat people. So that was, for a lot of guys, especially the ones that have been here, a tough pill to swallow."

Between the public outcry, Gary Bettman brushing against the signing, the players' opposition and everything else surrounding such an untenable situation, the Bruins wisely cut bait. Cam Neely admitted Boston hadn't done the bare minimum of at least speaking with Meyer-Crothers or his family. 

As of Saturday morning, CapFriendly and PuckPedia, the sport's most accurate contract and transaction databases that are publicly available, still had Miller listed under contract with the Bruins. He was due to receive the second of his three annual $95,000 signing bonuses on July 1 as part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Boston was apparently paying him to stay as far away as possible. 

However, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports the Bruins reached a confidential settlement with the blue-liner in February: 

Slap Shots learned from an NHL official on Friday that, “He and the Bruins have parted ways.” A Bruins spokesman then told us via email, “Can confirm Mitch Miller is not under contract with the team. Cannot comment further.”

What happened?

Slap Shots has been told the Bruins immediately terminated Miller’s contract in conjunction with their disassociation from him. There is, however, no record of the team placing him on unconditional waivers for the purpose of termination as required by the CBA. Then too, that regulation applies to mutually agreed termination, which this was not.

The NHLPA, in turn, filed a grievance.

We have learned that in lieu of a hearing, the parties reached a settlement under which Boston was released from its obligation while Miller received an unknown sum and was granted free agency.

To this point, there had been no indication that anything beyond paying Miller to sit at home was on the table for the Bruins. 

The contract could have been buried in the minors without penalty. A buyout of any sort would have assuredly been met with a grievance from the Players' Association, which turned out to be the case. Buying out Miller this offseason would have also cost Boston $215,834 against the cap for the next two seasons before an additional two at $129,167. 

Until Brooks' reporting, it seemed even if the B's said they had said they cut ties, they were still handcuffed to a dark cloud looming in the distance over the dominant regular season with Miller remaining on the books. At least it only seemed that way if you weren't one of the apparent few with direct knowledge of the situation. 

With the settlement, Boston appears to come away free of a penalty against the cap. The grievance from the NHLPA isn't shocking. The Players would have challenged it on a matter of principle for future contracts, negotiations and terminations, rather than directly defending Miller – more of a formality than anything else. 

Still, it's another reminder of the front office's complete and total lapse in judgment in attempting to bring in such a lightning rod like Miller, who didn't even last a month with Arizona before the Coyotes renounced his draft rights and North Dakota pulled his hockey scholarship in October 2020. 

Sure, Miller's talent showed through as an offensive blue-liner during an over-age season in the USHL as he hoped to boost his stock and claim repentance. Had the Boston simply reached out to the Meyer-Crothers and his family, they'd find Miller only offered up an apology over social media direct messages now that a contract to play professional hockey – a privilege, not a right – was dangled in front of his face, while he said hockey had nothing to do with his reaching out.

Yet despite readily available information regarding Miller's extremely troubled and inexcusable past, the Bruins opted to sign the productive blue-liner in an attempt to sweep it under the rug and add to an already weak prospect cupboard, throwing a lit match into an already combustible situation and failing to do any of the assigned reading. 

While Neely proclaimed himself and the organization determined to get to the bottom of their shortcomings in the saga, an independent review – led by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison – didn't exactly uncover any serious epiphanies or bring on true ramifications. 

There were “gaps” in the club’s vetting procedures when it came to Miller, who had “significant red flags," according to the review. But it also said there was “no misconduct by Bruins employees” during the signing process. That might have been so, but it doesn't exonerate any single person involved in the process from failing to adhere to any of the clear and obvious warning signs standing in front of them.

Either way, the review did help to establish a new vetting process for the organization going forward:

• Establish clear written policies for vetting off-ice conduct, including identifying red flags requiring detailed vetting and documented resolution 
• Establish clear timetables and responsibilities within the organization to investigate prospects’ community or other off-ice commitments 
• Establish centralized documentation of vetting to include reporting on red flags and off-ice issues and ensure such documentation is available to all stakeholders involved in the process 
• Establish a tracking system to ensure responsibilities for all vetting tasks are clearly assigned and tracked.  
• Utilize independent third-party resources to investigate and resolve factual issues when reviewing red flags 
• Determine whether there are specific training or rehabilitation programs the prospect should participate in depending on the nature of the red flags

In the end – after Brooks' reporting – this chapter has, mercifully, appeared to end for Boston. 

Now, we can refocus our attention to the more pressing matters at hand, like re-signing Jeremy Swayman and Trent Frederic in a race against time before their arbitration hearings on top of the continued waiting game on Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. 

Brooks noted that "it is likely" Miller will try to latch onto a team overseas in Europe.

Good riddance.