How J.T. Miller found his emotional focus to lead Canucks to series win over Nashville

Whatever you might think of J.T. Miller taking away Arturs Silovs' shirt and wearing it at the beginning of Thursday's Vancouver Canucks practice in Nashville, it would seem his teammates just thought the whole scene was funny.

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Even Silovs, it would seem. And that's all that matters.

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In another season, when Miller was younger, a team-wide jocular reaction to the moment might not have been a guarantee.

But Miller's spirit has come to be understood by his teammates, that's clear. His teammates love to rib him back. Not everyone is going to love his style, but they all do seem to appreciate now that this is just how he pushes toward the same goal as the rest of them.

"Obviously, if I've got a chance to crack at a young guy, that was a good opportunity. But it gave the guys a laugh," Miller told reporters after practice on Thursday.

Silovs, for his part, laughed about it.

"It looks good on him," he quipped of his shirt. He then apparently wore it back to the hotel.

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His teammates have come to appreciate Miller's loud nature. They know that the way he talks isn't out of true animosity, it's because he wants the team to be the best it can.

His coach seems to know this too.

Rick Tocchet laughed about the scene and obviously thought it was a positive for the team's mood, which might be a little on edge heading into another chance to seal the series.

"Loosens the guys," Tocchet told reporters. "You've got to make sure that you stay loose. Because the last thing you need is a tight bench."

When Miller was younger, going all the way back to when he was a junior, teams would look at his hair-trigger emotional state and say they had concerns about his maturity.

Miller is an emotional beast. He's honest in acknowledging his fiery nature — "I don't play relaxed," he once told Postmedia — but he's always made it clear this is who he is.

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Head coach Rick Tocchet has praised Miller's emotional element more than once, while also acknowledging that Miller needs reminding from time to time that there is still a limit to all this.

Not long after he joined the Canucks last season, Tocchet showed his players a series of clips that focused in on body language. A big item for him was how his players end their shifts.

Hustle to the bench. Don't lollygag.

Miller was in a couple of those clips. He clearly understood the message, told the Missin' Curfew podcast last year, because the slow changes quickly disappeared.

A year and a bit later, Miller is very much the player he always believed he could be, on and off the ice. His defensive play has improved. He broke through the 100-point barrier.

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And in a hard-nosed, hard-checking series against the Nashville Predators, he's one of the few Canucks who has found a way to produce. Through the five games of the series, he has a goal and five assists.

That he's producing in the playoffs is no surprise to Canucks fans, but that wasn't always the case. Before arriving in Vancouver, he'd tallied just 26 points in 61 playoff games for the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Young J.T. Miller, he said, might be a little surprised at how things are going for veteran J.T. Miller.

"Right now I'd be getting demoted to the fourth line or be out of the lineup. I couldn't play consistently," he said of how things went for him earlier in his career, especially in New York.

"I just feel more patient now."

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The emotions are still there, though, but they're more focused he said.

Credit the coaches here in Vancouver. He had playoff success in the 2020 bubble under Travis Green and he was a horse down the stretch for Bruce Boudreau in 2022, but it really does seem that Tocchet has been the perfect counsellor for him.

Miller credits Tocchet and his assistants Adam Foote and Mike Yeo for taking time to understand and help him be the player he is now. Still emotional, still opinionated.

Valued.

"They've been really good for understanding who I am," he said. "They don't want to change me, they just want to help me. My whole career and my whole life has been; how can we fix him?' That just pisses me off even more, because I'm not trying to be me. I just am."

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Tocchet loves Miller's passion and has no issue with the star centre wearing his emotions on his sleeve the way he does.

"He just wants to win," the veteran coach has said more than once.

In the end, it really is a mutual admiration society for Miller.

The coaches have helped him focus his emotions, not try to cap them.

"They've helped me to embrace it. I don't want it to go away."

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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