Rangers' K'Andre Miller appreciative of former teammate Ryan Reaves

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Back in October when Ryan Reaves still was on the Rangers, a reporter asked the enforcer if he felt bad about destroying Marcus Foligno in a fight during a game against the Wild on Oct. 13.

For the record, he did not.

“He shouldn’t have run Key,’’ Reaves said, referring to then- teammate K’Andre Miller.

When Reaves returns to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday for the first time since he was traded to the Wild on Nov. 23, it’s very likely that he will be the one trying to run Miller.

Miller, who said he will be “really excited’’ to see Reaves, was asked after practice on Monday if he is prepared for the possibility of Reaves trying to ram him into the end boards during the game.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be ready,’’ Miller said. “I’ve seen him do it before.’’

Miller said he vividly remembers the fight between Reaves and Foligno.

“Those two guys are on the same line now, I think,’’ he said with another laugh. “Hopefully they both don’t team up on me.’’

Reaves, one of the most feared players in the NHL, was one of the more beloved players in the Rangers’ locker room in the year-plus he was on the team. Reaves was traded to the Rangers in the summer of 2021, and he and Miller, who both are biracial with a Black father and a white mother, had a special connection.

“He was a huge, huge mentor for me, outside of hockey,’’ Miller said. “And he was definitely one guy I felt like I could lean on for situations that aren’t as easy to talk about in this world. So I think that’s one of the biggest things about my experience and relationship with him that I guess I miss.

“And I don’t want to say I kind of took it for granted while he was here, but it’s definitely a little bit different without him here.’’

While Miller didn’t want to get into a discussion of race and how that has impacted his experience in hockey, he did say “it definitely helped’’ for him to have a teammate in the locker room who looked like him.

It was especially comforting given the incident that occurred after Miller signed with the team at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. He did a Zoom call with Rangers fans and someone wrote a racial slur in the chat feed.

“My first year, as soon as I signed, I ran into an incident,’’ Miller said. “I think the amount of support I got from our community, the Ranger community, and hockey fans across the world was unbelievable. But having somebody [around] that experiences it too, who has been through it and has a little bit more experience under his belt . . . I think that was huge for my development and my first couple of years into the league, kind of getting used to what to expect.’’

Notes & quotes: Forward Jonny Brodzinski was back at practice for the first time since leaving the Rangers on Thursday to be with his wife for the birth of Olivia, his second daughter . . . Goaltender Jaroslav Halak did not practice because he had a stomach virus, according to the Rangers.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.