Mitchell Miller’s NHL career is over: there’s no doubt about that now!

We all knew Mitchell Miller was going downhill once the whole story came out, but we might not have thought all of his chances and dreams to make it to the National Hockey League would go up in flames. 

On Thursday, the Arizona Coyotes announced that they had renounced the rights to Miller, their top 2020 draft pick. The decision was (finally) made after a story published by Craig Harris and Jose M. Romero of The Arizona Republic revealed that Miller and another teen were charged with assault and violating the Ohio Safe Schools Act for bullying Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, a Black classmate with developmental disabilities in 2016. Despite this horrible story about Miller, the Coyotes still chose to move forward and select him in the fourth round (111th overall) of the draft on Oct. 7. They had a sudden change of heart, probably because of all the hate they got for getting involved with Miller. On Friday, it was the University of North Dakota hockey team who chose to cut ties with the young player. 

After both organizations cut ties with the kid, The Hockey News’ insiders talked about what’s next for Miller on their weekly podcast on Tuesday and well, the answer is nothing good. According to all of them, Miller’s NHL career is definitely over and his only chance to play on the ice would come in Russia, possibly a junior club or in the KHL. 

“I don’t know where he’s gonna be playing,” says Ken Campbell, “I can’t imagine that there would be a team that would be interested in picking him up. This is going to be a long time, this will be a long time before this situation gets cleared up. I just don’t see anybody taking him on their team right now, and what does that do to his development? Like he’s not going to be able to develop as a player if he has nowhere to play.”

“You can’t force a team in North America to take him on,” adds Ryan Kennedy. “I would find it difficult for an organization to say ‘okay, we’ve got this kid but how will he fit in the room, how is it going to look for us’ I don’t know if he can shake it over here, which is why I am going to say he’s going to play in Russia. That’s where they don’t really care about this kind of things, it might not be this year, maybe next year or maybe he just sign with an organization and plays with their junior team for a bit and eventually turns pro. I think he’s going to end up in Russia.”

That would surely call it an end for his NHL career. The kid seems to have made his bed and you know the rest of the saying. On Friday night, his twin sister Clarissa came out with a message on social message to defend her brother with everything that has taken place. She said that he is genuine and big hearted, and has African American friends and is not racist. She hates that she’s getting direct messages on social media who insult her brother and family, and adds that “if anyone knows both Mitchell and Isaiah know this story was just one sided.”

What we all know of this story is that it is ugly all around and that no one comes out winning in this. And clearly for Miller, this is a story that will haunt him for a long time and is the death of his NHL career before it even got started…