For Sault hockey star, this offseason was a bit different

He’s pleased with the end result, but it was a situation that was very new.

Coming off his seventh NHL season, Sault Ste. Marie native Colin Miller was set to test free agency in a manner he never had before: as an unrestricted free agent.

“It’s weird,” Miller said of the process. “Everything happens so quickly. You’re seeing a lot of names go off the board and it’s strange. You’re kind of wondering: ‘Hey, is now the time that guys around my kind of level are going to start going?’”

He eventually signed a two-year, $3.7 million contract with the Dallas Stars in July after spending three seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.

“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen there going into free agency,” said the former captain of the Soo Greyhounds. “It was my first time being a UFA and that happening, so it was hard to really know what was going to happen. A couple teams were interested, and I was really excited with Dallas. The fit will be awesome. I’m looking forward to getting down there.”

A lower-body injury last season meant surgery for the 29-year-old in January. Miller returned to the Buffalo lineup late in the season and is excited to be healthy again heading into his first season in Texas.

“Last year I was injured and I’m happy to get the surgery to get over that,” Miller said. “I feel healthy now. That was really lagging on me. Now I’m at a point where you feel like your strength is there going into camp.”

His three seasons in Buffalo didn’t go the way he had hoped.

“It was frustrating for me because I don’t think it worked out quite the way I would have hoped,” Miller said. “As an organization and a team, they’re heading in the right direction. They have a lot of high-end young skill that are going to push that team to the next level.”

Miller joined the Sabres in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights, which came a year into a four-year contract he had signed with the club the previous summer.

Set for his first season in Dallas, which will begin its training camp later this month, Miller said his role with the Stars hasn’t been solidified just yet. But the veteran is looking to be reliable.

“That will get hashed out the first couple of months of the year,” Miller said. “I’m really just looking to be a guy they can rely on on both sides of the puck. They have such a good core there of defencemen and forwards.”

While his style hasn’t changed a lot since his days in junior as a blueliner with the Hounds, Miller says there is a bit of a difference in his game.

“I think it’s just maturity,” Miller said. “As you get older, you see the game a little bit differently and have been in the situations a couple more times. I don’t know if anything major differently, but just some growth with age. It’s been a fun ride.”