J.T. Miller Leaves World Cup Exhibition With Suspected Hand Injury
Update: I thought Miller didn’t return last night, but apparently I am mistaken. I’ve re-worked the story a little from my original for full disclosure.
J.T. Miller played for team North America last night! And he looked really good!
Miller did take a shot off the hand and left the game for it to be examined, returning after a shift, but we know sometimes these injuries can linger after the fact.
Obviously this brought about a slew of panic at the time, but ...
J.T. Miller would have to have suffered a 5-week injury to miss opening night. Calm down, fellas.
— HockeyStatMiner (@HockeyStatMiner) September 9, 2016
Also, even in the event Miller’s hand exploded and he was out longer than five weeks, the Rangers have about 43 forwards who could replace him (or any other forward) until he returned. Yeah, you’d hate to see Miller’s expected breakout year to stumble out of the gate with an injury, but even the worst case scenario isn’t that bad overall.
Miller played 10 minutes last night, with two hits and three blocks. He didn’t record a shot on goal but did play 30 seconds on the penalty kill. Since he finished the game I’d have to assume there aren’t lingering effects but we’ll keep an eye on it to make sure.
On the other side Mats Zuccarello played over 20 minutes, didn’t register a point (Europe was shut out) but he had a pretty good game himself.