Like any rookie in the National Hockey League, Colin Miller has seen his share of growing pains.

In his first 39 games as a member of the Black and Gold, the former prospect of the Los Angeles Kings has 15 points and 32 penalty minutes to go along with a plus-2 rating. He’s made his share of mistakes in his own end for sure, but he’s also shown flashes of potential.

Miller has hit a few road blocks in his first season in Boston. He’s been sent down to Providence twice, including right before the Winter Classic. His last game with the Bruins came on February 14th where he notched 17:07 of ice time in a 6-5 loss to the Red Wings. Two days later, he was sent back to the P-Bruins to work on improving his play in the defensive end and other aspects of his game.

“[I] just have to play solid down here,” Miller told fellow Bruins Daily colleague Jake Kerin about his approach in Providence upon his return to the Baby B’s. “They have eight ‘D’ up there and they’re ready to go, they’re solid and they [Boston] are playing really good hockey lately, but nothing changes in my game and I just have to keep playing down here and be ready when that call [back to Boston] comes.”

After the trade deadline, the Bruins added John-Michael Liles to the D core that also included Zdeno Chara, John-Michael Liles, Kevan Miller, Dennis Seidenberg, Joe Morrow, Zach Trotman, Torey Krug and Adam McQuaid. Recent injuries to Seidenberg and Kevan Miller (who skated Tuesday morning after missing Sunday’s game with the Blackhawks with a lower-body injury) and the inconsistent play from Morrow and Trotman when they were inserted into the lineup this past weekend gave a sense of urgency to GM Don Sweeney to recall Colin Miller for this important three-game stretch.

Any AHL player always feels encouraged when he hears that he’s been called up to help their parent club. Getting the call to help a B’s team looking to get back into the postseason adds a little more incentive for Miller to help out anyway he can.

“Obviously this is an important week for the guys here, and I mean, I just like to come here and help anyway I can, and hopefully get the guys into the playoffs,” Miller said after the morning skate.

In 19 games down in Providence, Miller tallied 12 points on four goals and eight assists. During that span, he started to gain confidence in his play in the defensive zone.

The next three games for Miller — shall he skate in all of them — will be a good test whether those improvements he made in Providence will carry over up I-95 north, beginning tonight against the Hurricanes.

“I think one of the good things for him, being a young player, is that he got to play regularly. He got some of those kinks out of his game,” head coach Claude Julien said during his pregame press conference.

“You know again, a guy that can move the puck well, a guy that can shoot the puck well, skates well and just at times had to…was a little erratic in our own end. And so he had an opportunity to go down there, play a lot more and try and work on that part of his game. So he’s been good and I think right now he’s a guy where we have a choice of putting in our lineup tonight and looking at a little bit more of where we have some question marks with players that are banged up a little bit with injuries and so on and so forth.”