K'Andre Millers speaks out after leaving Rangers for personal reasons

It's been over a month since defenseman K'Andre Miller took a brief leave of absence from the New York Rangers and now the 23 year old defenseman is finally speaking up.

In an exclusive interview with Vincent Mercogliano Miller shared some insight into why he felt he had to take some time for himself and why he's so passionate about spreading awareness for mental health initiatives.

From Mercogliano's column:

"The easier your life is away from the rink, I feel like you can come to the rink with that same easy-minded flow to your game that I was looking for," the Blueshirts' defenseman said following Thursday's morning skate at T-Mobile Arena. "I kind of lost that for a little bit. I just wanted to get back to myself. I wasn't feeling like myself, so I needed to take that time to myself and kind of do what my body was telling me."

"I haven't had my greatest season," he said bluntly. "I’ve run into a little bit of difficulty through the middle stretch here, and I think it's just of a matter of switching the mood in here. Obviously, we weren’t doing so great. I think that was kind of an eye opener for this group and it kind of woke us up and put a different type of fire under our stove."

"I’m very hard on myself," he said. "It brings the best out of me, and I think having that knowledge – the feeling of the last couple of games – it sits in your stomach a little bit and gives you a little extra motivation to try to figure out what's going wrong and try to get back on track as soon as possible."

"It was good to throw a hard reset when I did," he said. "I think mental health is huge. It's something that I've been working on the last couple of years – just making sure that I’m good mentally to come out on the ice and perform my best is kind of the biggest thing. It’s the thing I was most looking forward to during that little time of absence."

- K'Andre Miller

Kudos to Miller for being open and honest enough to share with his fans. It takes a big man to step up and own his mental health difficulties, especially in such a public way.