K’Andre Miller scores jaw-dropping goal as Rangers down Flyers
The New York Rangers extended their winning streak to six games thanks to their offense led by an absolutely jaw-dropping goal by K’Andre Miller.
With the game knotted at two midway through the second period, Miller popped out of the penalty box and made a defensive play. Using his size and speed, he jetted into the Flyers zone only to be tripped at the blue-line and the refs arm raised for a penalty. The determined young defender dropped to his knees, popped immediately back up to score a gorgeous goal spring-boarding the Rangers to victory.
“That one’s in the bag for sure,” Miller laughed. “Shesty lets me work on that one although it doesn’t go in as much on him. It happened so quickly. Blacked out a bit and next thing I know I was cellying. It was fun.”
K’Andre Miller leads Rangers to 6th straight win
It wasn’t that great of a performance by the Blueshirts considering the way they played on Thursday to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs. More likely than not, they eased up on the struggling Flyers at times during the contest which made the game closer than it needed to be.
The Flyers opened the scoring at the 7:11 mark of the first period when James van Riemsdyk took a shot off the boards and used his reach to beat Jaroslav Halak.
New York pressed on and eventually tied the game off a nice set up by Barclay Goodrow to Artemi Panarin with 3:02 remaining.
Halak came up big for the Rangers in the second period with the Flyers pressing on back to back power plays. Despite battling the puck most of the night, Halak’s play during those penalty kills set the stage for K’Andre Miller’s highlight goal that broke the tie with 10:51 seconds on the clock.
That goal was followed up by a beauty from Goodrow for his 7th of the season, assisted by Mika Zibanejad and Panarin. Each player on that line recorded two points in the match.
A late shorthanded goal by the Flyers’ Scott Laughton made it a 3-2 contest heading into the final frame.
At the 6:32 mark of the third, Jimmy Vesey’s turnaround shot beat Carter Hart. For Vesey it was his 6th of the season and gave him back to back game winning goals.
Again, Philly would not go away quietly and scored just 91 seconds later when Morgan Frost’s stoppable shot beat Halak.
The Flyers would make a hard push for the equalizer late in the game after they were awarded a power play at the 16:40 mark. With Hart out for an extra attacker, captain Jacob Trouba dialed up a long distance shot into the empty net to seal the deal.
Kaapo Kakko would be awarded another empty net goal after Tony DeAngelo slashed his stick just as he was about to score.
Although the final score was 6-3, the game was a lot closer and one the Blueshirts were happy to find a way to win.
“I thought we played real good the first 25-35 minutes,” Gerard Gallant said. “We got a little bit sloppy at times. Overall we played pretty good hockey. It was all four lines, the d was involved, and we got good goaltending.”
Notable Rangers
- Jaroslav Halak made 29 saves
- Vincent Trocheck has 8 points in his last 6 games
- K’Andre Miller has points in 5 of his last 6 matches
Next Games: Sunday, December 18th, at Chicago Blackhawks (7:30 PM ET)
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