Watch: Canucks JT Miller’s End-to-End Rush ‘Lucky’ He Says

Not so much. Not so lucky, says Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Bruce Boudreau.

“That’s not a lucky goal, that’s pure skill and talent and desire,” Boudreau stated postgame. “The deceptive speed that he went around the defenceman and still had the where-with-all to pull it around the goalie was pretty impressive.”

After picking up the puck behind his own net from Vancouver Canucks defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, JT Miller skated 190-feet to the front of the Coyotes goal and tucked the puck past goaltender Karel Vejmelka with a forehand deke move, this after streaking through centre-ice during a slow Arizona line change and then sliding the puck through faked out left defenceman Janis Moser.

“I tried to catch them in a change, I don’t think the ‘D’ could gap as good as they wanted, obviously that doesn’t happen very often so I got a little lucky, yeah, I wouldn’t look too much into it, it doesn’t happen everyday obviously,” Miller said.

It sure doesn’t. Most efforts that make the plays-of-the-month highlights don’t.

The goal, the Vancouver Canucks fourth of the evening and Miller’s 16th of the season, came at the 6:20 mark of the third period and gave the Canucks all of the insurance they needed in their 5-1 victory over the visiting Arizona Coyotes.

The goal marked Miller’s 401st point in his NHL career, one period after he reached the 400-point milestone with an assist on Bo Horvat’s power play goal.

“Honest to god, I was just trying to, when I slip it under his (Moser’s) stick I’m just trying to get to the net,” Miller said, “it’s not every day for it to work like that, that’s where I think it’s lucky.”

“I would not be doubting that that’s on NHL Network, TSN, as a top-ten highlight tonight,” Boudreau added. “I don’t know how the other games were going or how they went, but that was definitely an end-to-end rush you don’t see too much anymore. He doesn’t like to take the credit when he does good things, but that was a good thing.”