It was a strange night on East Avenue as the Kitchener Rangers took on the Sudbury Wolves at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium on Halloween Night in front of a rare light crowd at the Aud, with the Toronto Blue Jays having a chance to close out the World Series.
With the victory, the Rangers have earned seven of a possible eight points in their last four games after playing three games in three days last weekend. In contrast, the Wolves remain at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
Game Recap
It was a sluggish start to the game, but the Rangers took control early, getting the game’s first two power-play chances. While they didn’t capitalize on either of these chances, it set the tone for Tanner Lam to open the scoring 15 minutes on a beautiful toe-drag shot that beat Karsen Chartier clean.
It was the lone goal of the opening frame, and it was almost held as the lone goal through 40 minutes until Jack LaBrash whacked home his second goal of the season. It came after Jakub Chromiak sent a one-timer high off a Cameron Reid setup. The pass ricocheted off the back wall, and Labrash showed excellent hand-eye coordination, tapping it in out of mid air.
The multi-goal lead heading into the third pretty much iced the game for the Rangers, with the Wolves having an 0-9-0-0 record when trailing after two periods entering Friday night’s game. However, they added one more, with Jack Pridham scoring an empty-net goal with 10 seconds left to close out the 3-0 shutout victory.
Penalty Kill Saves the Rangers
For most of the season, the Rangers’ penalty kill has been their biggest weakness. However, that has started to change recently, and continued vs. the Wolves, with the Rangers killing off all five power-play chances to maintain Kirsch’s shutout.
Not only did the Rangers kill off these five chances, but two of them came back-to-back, having to kill off a high-sticking double minor split between the end of the first period and the second period. Then, another one of those attempts was having to kill off a five-minute major with seven minutes left to play in the third period.
Despite already being up 2-0, this was the most significant point in the Rangers’ win. In many cases, teams would have given one up early in that five-minute kill and could have let the game get away from them after being put in such a challenging position—down a skater for the final seven minutes, including when the net was empty. However, the Rangers made this kill look routine, allowing very few shots on net.
Following the game, in an interview with Sean Furfaro, Rangers’ head coach Jussi Ahokas said, “It was huge, but I liked our PK the whole [game], it was going really well, guys were playing the way we want,” when asked about how big this five-minute kill was for the Rangers.
This penalty-kill perfection adds on to the Rangers’ killing off seven of the last eight chances their opponents had on the man advantage in their three previous games. Over their last four, they have a 92.3% penalty-kill percentage.
Christian Kirsch’s First OHL Shutout
Christian Kirsch finally got his first Ontario Hockey League (OHL) shutout, and I say finally because he has come so close so many times already this early in the season. This shutout came in his 10th start of the season, and it was his fifth time allowing one goal or less in a game.
In this one against the Wolves, Kirsch wasn’t overly challenged, making only 19 saves; however, with the strength of the Rangers’ defense and their defensive structure, they aren’t a team that allows many shots. So, for Kirsch and the Rangers netminders, it will rarely be about the volume, but the quality and the timeliness of the saves.
Kirsch has been making all of the saves he has needed to for this team this season, and following the win, Kirsch said, “It was awesome, I think it was a huge team effort. The team did a lot with the penalty kills and everything, so they helped me out a bunch, but yeah, I made a couple of good saves too, and at the end of the day, I got the zero. It was fun.”
Kirsch also added that, “It was a huge kill, and I think that won us the game,” when asked about killing off the five-minute major late in the game.
In his last four starts, the San Jose Sharks prospect has stopped 84 of 88 shots. He now has a save percentage of .920, which ranks third; a goals-against-average of 1.99, which ranks second; and eight wins, which are also the second-most among qualified goalies in the OHL.
How the Rangers’ Offense Becomes Dynamic
The Rangers will be right back at it on Saturday night, and when asked what more he wants from his team in their next game, head coach Ahokas said, “On our rushes, we weren’t driving hard enough to the net, and then we were missing shots and should have taken more shots. But, all-in-all, we need speed in the neutral zone so that we can get more speed on our drives [to the net]”.
Not to say it has been a consistent issue, but those few things that Ahokas mentioned are precisely what are keeping the Rangers from being a dominant offensive team.
This team is ultra-talented; they have scored three or more goals in five straight games, and have scored fewer than that only four times this season. On the flip side, they have only exploded for five or more twice this season.
The Rangers have several talented, skilled passers who can make plays out of nothing, such as Arquette, with a nice delay just over the Wolves’ blue line, which opened up a seam for Lam, who then toe-dragged a defender and put the puck in the back of the net.
They produce these highlight reel goals on a nightly basis, and they do a good job of getting traffic in front. But at times, they get caught up in looking for the perfect play, which isn’t always there. If the Rangers get more comfortable using their speed and size to take pucks to and fire pucks at the net, you’ll see the Rangers score a lot more goals, like LaBrash’s rebound goal to give the Rangers the two-goal lead against the Wolves.
They may not always be the highest quality scoring chances when you take the puck to the net with speed or shoot from distance. However, both can cause havoc in front of the net, and that is when defenses break down more consistently.
Again, this team is far from struggling offensively. I think these details are what set the Rangers’ offensive performance apart in this 3-0 victory from their 6-1 blowout over the Guelph Storm earlier in October.
Related: 3 Takeaways From Kitchener Rangers’ Explosive Victory Over Guelph Storm
However, regardless of what I think, the Rangers are 4-0-1-0 in their last five games, earning nine of a possible 10 points. They have a chance to keep this hot streak going on Saturday afternoon on the road against the Brampton Steelheads.
