Bruins retain ex-AG to review vetting of Miller

The Boston Bruins person retained erstwhile U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to behaviour an autarkic reappraisal of their player-vetting process aft they signed imaginable Mitchell Miller and past chopped ties with him 2 days aboriginal amid aggravated backlash.

The Bruins announced connected Tuesday that Lynch, of the instrumentality steadfast of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, volition "conduct an autarkic reappraisal of our player-vetting process" and guarantee that "our process going guardant reflects our halfway values."

Boston said it volition afloat cooperate with the reappraisal and volition publically disclose the results.

"The Boston Bruins strive each time to unrecorded our values and conscionable the precocious standards our associates, fans and assemblage person travel to expect," the Bruins said successful a connection released Tuesday. "This includes treating everyone wrong and extracurricular our enactment with dignity and respect. We precocious fell abbreviated of our precocious standards and disappointed some ourselves and galore successful our community."

The Bruins signed Miller, a 20-year-old defenseman, to an entry-level declaration connected Nov. 4 with the volition of sending him to AHL Providence. The team, however, announced connected Nov. 6 that it was cutting ties with Miller aft aggravated backlash from fans, the team's players and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Miller remains nether declaration with the squad and is technically inactive a subordinate of Providence. Among the options for the Bruins: wage Miller to enactment location for this play and past bargain him retired astatine the extremity of the twelvemonth for one-third of his NHL salary; oregon to enactment with Miller and the NHLPA connected a colony that would let him to go a escaped agent.

He was a fourth-round prime of the Arizona Coyotes successful 2020, but his draught rights were relinquished erstwhile a communicative was published astir however helium and different mediate schoolhouse classmate were convicted successful juvenile tribunal successful 2016 of assaulting and bullying Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, a Black classmate with developmental disabilities.

In the report, Meyer-Crothers' parent alleged Miller began abusing her lad successful 2nd people and repeatedly utilized radical slurs. Miller admitted successful an Ohio juvenile tribunal that helium utilized radical epithets against Meyer-Crothers, physically assaulted him and astatine 1 constituent tricked him into "licking a candy propulsion popular that Miller and different lad had wiped successful a bath urinal," according to a constabulary report.

Fans were outraged by the signing of Miller, and Bruins veterans specified arsenic Nick Foligno and Patrice Bergeron expressed disappointment. Bettman reiterated Miller wasn't cleared by his bureau to play for the Bruins and "I can't archer you that he'll ever beryllium eligible to travel into the NHL."

On Nov. 7, Boston president Cam Neely expressed interest implicit failures successful the team's vetting process successful signing Miller. He cited "new information" erstwhile the squad walked distant from Miller connected Nov. 6. Neely said the information that the Bruins ne'er reached retired to the household of Meyer-Crothers "was concerning" and that it was "absolutely" a occupation with the team's vetting process.