BOSTON — When Jay Miller saw Brandon Carlo upon arrival at TD Garden, the former enforcer told the defenseman to get his game face on because the Bruins were playing the Canadiens.
But even as Miller said it, the popular ex-player knew that a Boston vs. Montreal game wouldn’t be the same as it was when he played because the NHL isn’t the same.
Miller, 63, a veteran of seven NHL seasons including four with the Bruins, still watches hockey. But the games on the TV above the bar at Courtyard, the restaurant and bar he owns in Cataumet near Buzzards Bay, don’t look like the ones he played in. It’s even more pronounced when Boston is facing Montreal.
“That rivalry was exciting. It was one of those things you really got amped up for,” Miller said before Boston’s 9-4 win on Saturday. “Everybody wanted to watch the Montreal-Boston games. You knew there was going to be scraps.”
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About 300 miles or 500 kilometers away in Quebec, Chris Nilan has the same longing as his former combatant-turned-pal.
“It’s not the same. There’s no question. When you play three or four exhibition games before the season and eight times during the season you can’t help but dislike each other,” said Nilan, who hosts the popular “Raw Knuckles” podcast now. “It was a great rivalry. It had everything. Fights. Really good plays. Great goaltending. It was a lot of fun. It’s just not the same anymore.”
The rivalry has wilted for a few reasons. For one, the Canadiens, once the NHL’s signature franchise on par with the Celtics, Lakers and Yankees for greatness, have fallen well short of their past glory. Outside of the two odd-format pandemic seasons, it’s been 10 years since the Habs have won a playoff series.
But more than that, Boston and Montreal, who used to meet eight times during the regular season and regularly in the playoffs, only play four times now. Instead of back-to-back home-and-home games that were regularly part of the old schedules, the meetings are spread out. There’s not enough familiarity to breed contempt anymore.
While NHL expansion has limited the regular season meetings, a format change and the Canadiens’ lack of participation have prevented more postseason showdowns. But even if the teams played more, the considerable decrease in fighting has watered down the intensity. Most teams don’t carry enforcers anymore. The NHL’s leader in penalty minutes in 2022-23 was Pat Maroon with 150. Nilan had twice that in three separate seasons. Fighting used to be part of the build-up to a game. Now, it happens but not nearly as often.
“I couldn’t wait to pound some faces. Fear was my biggest asset,” Miller said. “Back when we played four home and four away and you’d have a back-to-back. You might have averaged out a fight, but you’d have the next night to get the guy back. That was the cool part. Now you have to wait six months to get a guy back.”
Sometimes they only had to wait a period. The first time Nilan and Miller played each other they fought twice in the same game, once in the first and again in the second period.
Nilan said the Bruins called Miller up from Moncton that night just to fight him. Nilan had been suspended for eight games earlier that season for hitting Rick Middleton in the face with the butt end of his stick and Boston wanted payback. Miller, who had 113 penalty minutes in 18 games in the AHL, seemed like a good candidate to deliver it.
Miller had been up just one game earlier that year, but the Bruins summoned him again before the Dec. 5, 1985 game. He and Nilan each left with 22 minutes in penalties.
Nilan recalled their second bout.
“(Bruins coach Butch) Goring took Cam Neely off and put Jay on. I just turned to Jay and said ‘I know what the (expletive) you’re here for. We’re going as soon as the puck drops,” Nilan said. “I put my stick across his and he put his back across mine. I said “(expletive) you and went after him. I didn’t swing until he dropped his gloves and his stick. I saw (Bruins defenseman Brian) Curran coming out of the corner of my eye. He was going to jump on me too. So I punched him right in the (expletive) mouth over Jay’s shoulder and I fought Jay.”
They dropped the gloves again in January and then in March. Miller and Nilan fought six times in their careers, with several matching roughing penalties thrown in for good measure. According to HockeyFights.com, of Miller’s 1,723 career penalty minutes, over half of them came from his 174 career fights. Miller fought Nilan’s Canadiens teammate John Kordic more and Philadelphia’s Dave Brown more. But the Nilan fights had more notoriety.
Other than the on-ice snarling, Miller said he and Nilan never spoke until late in their careers.
“I never knew another tough guy (off the ice),” he said. “I didn’t want to because I wanted to knock their block off.”
They spoke briefly before Miller’s Kings played the Rangers, who Nilan played parts of three seasons with later in his career. They were walking into Cincinnati Gardens for an exhibition game at the same time and said spoke briefly.
Nilan said Miller noticed Kings general manager Rogie Vachon coming toward them.
“Jay says ‘I gotta go. He hates when we talk to guys on the other team,’ and walked away,” said Nilan, who knew Miller would try to make up for the frowned-on exchange to his G.M. “I knew I was fighting him. Sure enough, first shift, we drop the gloves.”
But after their careers ended Miller and Nilan have actually become friends, united by the unique fraternity they were part of and their longing for the days when hockey valued it.
“We’re friends. We’ve done a lot together. We’ve been in fishing tournaments together,” Nilan said. “We’ve had some fun together.”
Call them enforcers, goons or whatever, Miller, who thinks he’s one of the 10 best to ever fill the role, bragged he was never cut in scrap. He was proud if his team needed him that he was there to stand up for his more skilled teammates, a list that included Ray Bourque and Rick Middleton in Boston and Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles. But he was also proud of the way he did the job.
“I was clean. I was fair. I’d never fight dirty. I never bit anybody’s earlobe off. When you were on the ground defenseless, I’d let you up,” he said. “I’ll get you next time, you get me next time. That’s the way it was played.”
He knows it’s never coming back.
“I miss the rough stuff. I know they can’t bring it back, which is fine. It was part of my game. It made my career where I am today. I always said if you take fighting out, you can’t bring it back. …I miss the game the way it was played. I miss that mental toughness. Not only physical toughness but mental toughness.”
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Nilan hoped maybe a future Bruins-Canadiens playoff series might one day rekindle the rivalry.
“Even then, shit has to happen. There has to be bad blood to really make it interesting. We certainly had a whole lot of opportunity to create that bad blood when we played. I loved those days. I miss those days.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
