Rangers' Mika Zibanejad feels revitalized playing alongside new captain J.T. Miller

GREENBURGH — Mika Zibanejad doesn’t look at it as playing on the wing as much as just playing on the same line as a guy with whom he has obvious chemistry, he said.

“I’d say I play more forward than wing or center,’’ Zibanejad said of the idea of serving as the right wing on J.T. Miller’s line. “I feel like we take faceoffs on our strong sides unless we have some specific play that we want to run, and I think just in terms of, like, whoever’s the highest up, they go on the forecheck. And then the other guy backs up.’’

“We talked about it at breakfast,’’ Miller said after the Rangers’ first practices of training camp on Thursday. “We’re playing forward right now, and that makes our lives easier. Today in that little [intrasquad] scrimmage, we must have switched seamlessly at center and wing five, six times.’’

When new coach Mike Sullivan flew to Sweden to spend a day with Zibanejad this summer, Zibanejad stressed how much chemistry he and Miller had with one another after Miller was acquired from the Vancouver Canucks at the end of January.

“I think we’re similar. We think similar,’’ said Zibanejad, who was having a miserable season but seemed revitalized after Miller’s arrival. “We have different attributes, obviously, but I think we think the game alike.

“I’ve talked about this . . . so many times throughout the years, with a new line or linemate, sometimes it clicks right away, sometimes it takes time to develop the chemistry,’’ Zibanejad said. “But I feel like as soon as I got to play with him, I felt like it clicked right away.’’

“We’re the same age [32], and came in around the same time,’’ Miller said. “We don’t have to talk to each other much because we kind of just have an idea and it’s basically like . . . ‘Hey, we’re going there.’ ’’

Miller and Zibanejad played together at times during Miller’s first tour of duty with the Rangers, though in those days, Zibanejad was the center and Miller the wing. Now they are the only two remaining Rangers who played on the team before its 2018 rebuild (Miller was traded away at the start of the rebuild before being reacquired last season) after Chris Kreider was traded to Anaheim over the summer.

Zibanejad, who played most of his Rangers career on a line with Kreider, said it has been hard for him to adjust to not having Kreider around.

“It’s my longest linemate, the longest teammate I’ve had in my career,’’ he said. “It’s one of my best friends, so it’s weird not to see him come through these doors.’’

Miller is still getting used to the idea that he is the captain of the Rangers. The team announced that on Tuesday.

“It’s been a special couple days for my family, for sure,’’ he said. “It was ingrained in me at a young age what it means to be a captain around here, and I’m just super-thankful and lucky to represent the group like that.’’

Miller, who had some issues with coaches when he was younger, was asked if, in those days, he ever envisioned he’d be a captain.

“Absolutely not,’’ he said.

He said he learned much from his first two captains with the Rangers, Ryan Callahan and Ryan McDonagh, and said he won’t be calling around asking for tips on being a captain.

“I just don’t want to overthink it,’’ he said. “I want to be me.’’

Panarin seeks ‘security’

Entering the final year of his contract, Artemi Panarin didn’t want to talk about the status of negotiations on a potential extension, but he said it would be nice to have the security of a new deal in place before the season.

“That’s obviously good for everyone, probably, to feel that security,’’ he said. “But I’m . . . not [in my] first year in hockey . . . It is what it is right now.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.