{"id":551267,"date":"2026-04-12T17:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551267\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:15:18","slug":"why-rangers-captain-sought-no-brainer-fight-with-his-stars-counterpart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551267\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Rangers captain sought ‘no-brainer’ fight with his Stars counterpart"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Rangers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"avatar\"\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

J.T. Miller<\/a> got a good view of Jamie Benn\u2019s hard hit from behind on his New York Rangers teammate Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a> late in the second period at American Airlines Center on Saturday and didn\u2019t like what he saw. So, the Rangers captain didn\u2019t hesitate dropping the gloves with his Dallas Stars counterpart.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t much to the actual fight, but the reason behind the respective captains throwing down was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think all good teams have that. It\u2019s not really a decision. It\u2019s just a pack mentality type of thing,\u201d Miller explained postgame<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be hits that happen in the course of the season that you don\u2019t like. It\u2019s a fiery game, it\u2019s supposed to be this way, it\u2019s been part of the game for a long time. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an automatic thing to it, you don\u2019t think. We\u2019re all really close in here, so, yeah, it\u2019s a no-brainer, and we\u2019ve got a lot of guys in here doing it. It\u2019s awesome to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The fight at 18:17 of the second period didn\u2019t quite alter the course of the game, which was scoreless at the time. The Rangers came out of it with a power play, since Benn received an extra minor penalty for boarding Gavrikov, and that became part of a 5-on-3 advantage when Dallas\u2019 Colin Blackwell was assessed a high-sticking minor 36 seconds after the fight. <\/p>\n

The Rangers failed to score, and Vincent Trocheck\u2019s<\/a> double minor for high-sticking at 19:51 short-circuited the two-man advantage. A pair of Jason Robertson goals in the third period sunk the Rangers<\/a> in a 2-0 loss, their 10th shutout defeat of the season.<\/p>\n

Miller standing up for Gavrikov wasn\u2019t a one-off for the Rangers,. One of the hallmarks of their success down the stretch of this otherwise disappointing season is the amount of fights they\u2019ve had. Will Cuylle<\/a> had a couple tilts, not so unexpected. But Adam Sykora<\/a> also had one, and so did fellow rookie Noah Laba<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, of course, there was the goalie fight two weeks ago, when Igor Shesterkin put a surprise whipping<\/a> on Jacob Markstrom of the New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our team\u2019s done a good job of sticking up for each other,\u201d Miller noted.<\/p>\n

Instead of fracturing under the weight of a lost season, the last-place Rangers pulled together, especially late in the season. There\u2019s something to be said for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the closest groups I\u2019ve been on, and things like that are important,\u201d Adam Fox said Saturday. \u201cObviously, you don\u2019t want J.T. fighting all the time, but obviously it\u2019s good. He was willing to get in there, obviously a dangerous hit. That\u2019s what good teams do, and tight teams do, they stand up for each other. And it\u2019s good when your captain\u2019s doing things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tJim Cerny is Executive Editor at Forever Blueshirts and Managing Editor at Sportsnaut, with more than 30 years of … More about Jim Cerny<\/a><\/p>\n

Add Forever Blueshirts as a Preferred Source on Google.\"Add<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Rangers News J.T. Miller got a good view of Jamie Benn\u2019s hard hit from behind on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-551267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkrangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-rangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116392868945904429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}