J.T. Miller Scores Lone Goal To Defeat Wings In Overtime

Following Thursday’s win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the New York Rangers followed it up with a 1-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday afternoon. Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves for his second shutout of the season, and J.T. Miller scored the lone goal of the game with 3:04 left in overtime.

This game as a whole was a snoozefest for both teams, and that was largely due to poor ice conditions at Joe Louis Arena, as Alain Vigneault alluded to in his post-game interview. The puck was constantly bouncing all afternoon long, which resulted in rather boring dump and chase hockey at both ends of the ice.

The best chances of the game came early in the first period, where Thomas Vanek rang a shot off the post and had another opportunity for a tap in at the right side of the net. From that point on though, the neutral zone was just a clogged up mess with both teams playing an extremely conservative defensive game.

Fittingly, this boring game would need to be decided in extra time, as if the first 60 minutes wasn’t enough torture. Thankfully, the Rangers finally caught their break a little under two minutes into overtime, after Brady Skjei broke up a 2-on-1 chance and quickly fed Zuccarello at the far blue line. The quick outlet caught the Red Wings in transition, and J.T. Miller quickly joined the rush to create a 2-on-0 from just inside the blue line.

Zuccarello was able to get Jared Coreau to commit after faking the shot, and slipped the puck over to Miller for the game-winning goal at the 1:56 mark. This now marks the Rangers second straight win, as they look ahead to tomorrow’s meeting with the Los Angeles Kings at Madison Square Garden.