J.T. Miller didn’t exactly hold back on the golf course.
The Rangers captain joined former teammate Vincent Trocheck and former NHL defenseman Mark Pysyk for Spittin’ Chiclets’ latest Sandbagger Scramble, and the setup was tailor-made for Miller to cut loose. Between the golf, the cocktails and the constant chirping from Paul Bissonnette, Ryan Whitney and Keith Yandle - who played with Miller in New York for parts of two seasons - the episode gave Rangers fans a looser, more candid version of their captain than they’re used to seeing.
Miller leaned into it. He joked about the Rangers’ disappointing 2025-26 season, getting booed at Madison Square Garden, his rocky relationship with Vancouver Canucks star Elias Pettersson and even the possibility of being traded. He came across with plenty of self-deprecating humor, and the whole thing felt a lot more natural than the stiff interviews fans saw too often before and after games last season.
Trocheck was right there with him, and the two spent part of the round swapping stories from Team USA’s Olympic gold-medal run this past February. The group kept poking fun at Pysyk for being the only one in the foursome without a gold medal, while Miller set the tone early with a joke before the round even got going.
“Wait till I mark my ball with a Gold Medal,” Miller joked before the round began.
The Olympic chatter kept rolling from there. Miller and Trocheck talked about Team USA players not being allowed to have alcohol in the Milan-Cortina Olympic Village, which led to a workaround with help from Czechia players.
“The Czech guys were smuggling us booze,” Miller said.
Miller also said most players hid alcohol in bags or under their shirts to get it past security, but Buffalo Sabres teammate Tage Thompson reportedly strolled in carrying cases over his shoulder without any issue.
The two Rangers also looked back on overtime of the gold-medal game, when both believed their night was finished because they were fourth-liners. Miller joked that his skates were already undone before Trocheck was suddenly called on for a face-off in overtime after expecting to spend the rest of the game on the bench.
Back on the NHL side of things, Miller’s rough 53-point season in 2025-26 became easy target material for the group. Spittin’ Chiclets contributor Pasha Eshghi, a big New Jersey Devils fan, called Miller a “power-play merchant,” and Whitney relayed Miller’s sarcastic response.
“Yeah, because guys who get 100 points never get them on the power play.”
That line pointed back to Miller’s career-high 103-point season with the Canucks in 2023-24, and it was enough to quiet the criticism for a moment. Miller, though, didn’t pretend last season was anything other than fair game.
“Last year, for sure. Let it rip. I had six five-on-five points last year, and four of them were in camp,” Miller quipped.
The Rangers’ missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs came up too, with Trocheck joking, “Pasha was waiting for someone to bring up how bad the Rangers are,” and Bissonnette piling on by saying, “Imagine if you guys didn’t have a goalie,” a nod to Igor Shesterkin’s strong play in 2025-26.
Miller even took a shot at himself when asked whether he’d rather play on the power play or the penalty kill at MSG.
“PK. I don’t like getting booed,” Miller deadpanned.
Of course, the Pettersson topic was never going to stay away for long. While Miller was setting up a shot, Bissonnette cracked that he was “getting bullied more than ‘Petey’ on the Canucks,” and Trocheck immediately called out the timing.
“That was in his backswing. That was so dirty,” Trocheck said.
“Petey in my backswing is crazy,” Miller responded.
Miller then seemed to confirm the reason for his 10-game leave of absence from the Canucks in 2024-25, months before the Rangers acquired him. It was for bullying Pettersson.
“I went to rehab for that,” Miller said, before adding, “Dude, they had no minibar.”
He also told the crew they didn’t need to cut out his comments about Pettersson or that situation. Later, Whitney joked that he understood why Miller had been described as a “dominant personality” in the locker room before looping Pettersson back into the conversation.
By the end of the round, even Rangers GM Chris Drury had become part of the banter. Miller and Bissonnette were clearly well into the drinks by then, practically draped on each other in the golf cart, when Bissonnette joked that Drury couldn’t even trade Miller for a third-round pick.
Miller didn’t miss a beat.
“And that’s OK because if he tries to, I quit.”
In Other News...
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The problem, of course, is that offseason ambition does not automatically quiet the skepticism around a team that still has to prove it can make the leap. Drury has invested real assets in these upgrades, and the Rangers are banking on those decisions aging well, but the bigger question remains whether this group can turn a couple of notable additions into something more convincing than another round of hope and projection. [Read more 🡒]
Tye Kartye Could Put Early Pressure On The Rangers Forward Plan
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For a Rangers team trying to settle its forward plan, Kartye is the kind of player who can complicate things fast if he gets rolling. A strong start could force the coaching staff to rethink how it wants to sort out the lower lines and the ripple effects could reach other forwards as the roster gets sorted over time, while the organization would still prefer not to push longer-term pieces into action before they are ready. [Read more 🡒]