Elliotte Friedman believes the New York Rangers may be paying Will Borgen a bit too much on his contract extension that begins next season. But the respected NHL insider also sees a specific intangible that makes Borgen extremely valuable to the Rangers.
Speaking on his 32 Thoughts podcast Monday, Friedman explained that the 28-year-old defenseman’s value might be more to the Rangers because of how he has helped bring out the best in K’Andre Miller’s game since they were teamed on the second defense pair in New York.
“The biggest thing is the Miller thing,” Friedman stated. “This is one of those situations where, if you watched them play a bit, you say, ‘That looks good.’ And you say ‘Let me check this’ and you go look up the numbers and the numbers look good too. This is one where both the eye test and the numbers work.
“Aside from playing with [Adam] Fox, this is the best that Miller’s looked all season.”
In 271:51 TOI paired together, Miller and Fox have an outstanding xGF of 64.97 percent 5v5 this season, per Natural Stat Trick. They’ve been on for 16 goals and only nine against. However, the Rangers prefer to partner Fox with Ryan Lindgren, who’s again healthy and drawing praise from coach Peter Laviolette after he missed the first five games with a jaw injury this season and then struggled to play catch up.
For quite a while, that meant Miller paired with Jacob Trouba. That is, until the former Rangers captain was traded to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 6. It wasn’t pretty for them — outscored 10-0 with a miserable 0.29 xGF this season. It wasn’t much better for Miller with Braden Schneider as his partner.
Miller’s two-way game cratered and his name populated trade rumors, especially with a restricted free agent payday waiting at season’s end. His offensive production was almost nil, the crucial turnovers added up and it looked like he could be a goner.
Then Borgen arrived from the Seattle Kraken in the Kaapo Kakko trade on Dec. 18. Things have progressively gotten better for Miller since. With Miller on the left side and Borgen on the right, they have an xGF of 51.22 percent together and they look very comfortable as a pair in more than 240 minutes as partners.
“The best thing you can do is not trade your problem — it’s solve your problem internally,” Friedman explained. “And if you look at Borgen and say you’ve got someone here and we suddenly see a path here for Miller where he looks much calmer because we found the right partner, you’re going to keep that guy.”
It’s not a coincidence that things have settled down around Miller as well. The Rangers are 8-2-3 in January and had a 10-game point streak (7-0-3) end Sunday, when they lost 5-4 to the Colorado Avalanche. The Rangers are three points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and Miller is again a big reason for their success.
And Borgen is a big reason for Miller’s success.
Contract numbers ‘probably a little bit high’ but Rangers happy to keep Will Borgen
Borgen could have become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. Instead, the Rangers signed him to a five-year, $20.5 million contract, a somewhat big commitment to a player who’s had a steady but unspectacular career.
“The numbers are probably a little bit high for a guy that doesn’t score a ton,” Friedman said. “But if it’s going to make Miller a better player and it’s going to affect Miller as well as it has, then you’re doing it.”
Borgen has two goals and two assists in 18 games since the trade, and is averaging three minutes more in ice time with New York than he did in Seattle. He’s up to 18:31 TOI with the Rangers and even has points in consecutive games after scoring his third goal of the season on Sunday.
Miller is up to 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 43 games this season, well off where he should be. Even after dropping to 30 points last season, he’s still the same player who had 43 points in 2022-23.
The 25-year-old has four points (one goal, three assists) in his past four games. Equally as important, there are far fewer turnovers and egregious mistakes in his own end of the ice. He’s playing a more confident game paired with Borgen.
“Right shots are hard to find,” Friedman explained. “You’ve got one who’s a good fit with one of your key young players, you’re going to take the shot. I think that’s why it ultimately all happened here.”
