6:05PM: The Rangers are sending Miller to Carolina for:
- 2026 first round pick*
- 2026 Second Round Pick
- 22-year old right shot defenseman Scott Morrow
*The conditions on the First Round Pick are:
- If neither Carolina or Dallas finish in the top-10, the Rangers will get the better of those picks.
- If one team finishes in the top-10 then the Rangers will get the other pick.
- If both teams finish in the top-10 then the Rangers will receive the better of Dallas or Carolina’s first round picks in 2027.
5:48PM: Elliotte Friedman says that this will be a sign and trade and that the Rangers will sign Miller to an eight-year deal worth $60 million.
Friedman said earlier that Carolina was considering an offer-sheet for Miller but the two teams worked out a trade instead.
Had Carolina signed Miller to an offer sheet worth $7.5 million per season and the Rangers didn’t match then they would acquire Carolina’s first, second and third round picks in 2026.
1PM: The Rangers are trading K’Andre Miller to Carolina and Miller is working on an extension with the Hurricanes.
The Rangers previously sent Brady Skjei to Carolina in 2020 for a first round pick.
Adam Rotter: It’s been an afternoon of waiting to see what the Rangers were going to get for Miller and a first round pick, second round pick and a 22-year old defenseman isn’t a bad return for a player that the Rangers seemed determined to move. That also doesn’t include adding Vladislav Gavrikov with the money they would have had to allocate to sign Miller.
The Rangers will get an up close view of Miller and whether the $7.5 million he is getting from Carolina is going to be worth it. They are going to see Miller plenty in the regular season and probably in the playoffs for at least the next eight-years. Carolina was probably not the Rangers preference for Miller, but if he was going to sign an offer sheet, their hands were tied a bit.
Doing it this way nets the Rangers a former second round pick in Morrow who doesn’t have a ton of NHL experience but produced nicely in the AHL last season. It’s not unreasonable to think that, especially if Braden Schneider does move to the left side, that Morrow could be on the the Rangers third pair this season. So getting Morrow back is probably better than Carolina’s third round pick next year, but the downside of going this route rather than accepting the offer sheet is the top-10 protection on the pick. If Carolina had signed him to the offer sheet than the Rangers would have gotten their pick no matter what. Carolina should be a contender again next season so that protection likely won’t matter, but getting the better of Dallas or Carolina’s pick, especially if one goes out early, could be in the high 20s.
But it’s not just the return that the Rangers are getting for Miller that gets evaluated, it’s the eight-year, $7.5 million per season deal that Carolina signed him to. It’s a lot of money for Miller at this stage of his career and coming off a season or two where he seemed to stagnate. You can’t really teach his size and he skates incredibly well, but his decisions with and without the puck left a lot to be desired under Peter Laviolette. Could he have rebounded under Mike Sullivan and reuniting with David Quinn after they were together for Miller’s rookie season? Possibly, but the Rangers were not in a position cap-wise to take that risk on an eight-year contract. His potential is still incredibly high and while I don’t think he had sort of hit his ceiling with the Rangers and needed a change of scenery like Kaapo Kakko did, the Rangers just wouldn’t or couldn’t commit to a long-term deal. Had they not signed Gavrikov it would have been interesting to see what decision the Rangers made with Miller, but they got the guy they wanted in Gavrikov, added two picks that they could either use at the draft or use at the trade deadline and a young player in Morrow that is just starting his pro career. If you combine all of those things then it seems like a pretty good return for Miller. If the Rangers weren’t going to commit to Miller, and they weren’t, then this is a good return.