The New York Rangers unceremoniously traded away the last captain they had, Jacob Trouba to the Anaheim Ducks in December 2024. They haven’t had a captain since then.
Three weeks before the start of the 2025-26 National Hockey League season, the New York Rangers named the captain who will lead them into their centennial season. The 29th captain in franchise history will be former Rangers first-round draft pick, J.T. Miller.
Top six forward Vincent Trocheck will be an alternate captain along with Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Adam Fox. From that group of five, Miller and Trocheck will be the only players receiving an official team leadership designation who did not have one last season.
Miller rejoined the Rangers, who drafted him 15th overall in 2011, last January when the Vancouver Canucks traded him to Broadway with Erik Brannstrom and Jackson Dorrington for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini and a first-round pick.
Miller, an Ohio-native, scored 35 points in 40 games for the Canucks before coming over to Broadway and being a point-per-game player. The 32-year-old scored 35 points in 32 games with the Rangers last season, which placed him second on the team in points behind only Panarin.
In terms of the team’s record with and without Miller, the Rangers were 24-22-4 without Miller and 15-14-3 with him in 2024-25.
At a recent media availability, general manager Chris Drury described why the organization chose Miller and why this was the right time to name a captain.
We thought it was a perfect time to do it, right before the start of camp. Didn’t really have any interest in starting camp without one and we obviously thought he [Miller] was a terrific choice. The way he prepares, he plays, how hard he competes. He goes over the boards looking to get into the fight and he drags others into it. That’s what we need, and we’re excited to have him as our captain.
Mike Sullivan has taken over as the Rangers head coach and will now have a leadership group set up going into the season rather than having to form one as the season progresses.
At the same media availability, even though Sullivan hasn’t worked with Miller yet during his NHL coaching career which spans 12 seasons, Sullivan talked about why Miller seemed like the right fit.
We feel comfortable with JT being the captain of the team, but by no means does it end there. We feel like we’ve got a strong leadership group and it’s the responsibility of all of us, ourselves included to enhance that leadership and spread that leadership around. We think JT is a great selection, he’s a good person, he represents in so many ways what we hope Rangers hockey is going to look like, he’s a fierce competitor and he’s a good person.
The Rangers missed the playoffs last season for the first time in four years. Now, with a new coaching staff, they will look to turn their fortunes around during the 2025-26 NHL season in a hotly-contested Metropolitan Division.
Drury spoke about the team’s expectations for the season.
To me the expectations haven’t changed. We always try to get off to a good start, have a good training camp. You can’t win the whole thing without getting in the playoffs. We want to just keep getting better every week, every month, you know, hopefully accumulate enough points and wins to get in the playoffs and go from there. Again, I think we have a lot of really good players and it’s our job to get the most out of them in these 82 games.
