Garreffa nets a pair in Rangers win over Mississauga

Joe Garreffa is on some kind of hot streak.

The Kitchener Rangers vet established a career high in points in a season with two goals, along with an assist to lead his side to a 5-2 win over the Mississauga Steelheads Sunday afternoon at the Aud.

Garreffa has points in six straight games — five of them multi-point games — and took first star honours for the second straight game.

The smooth skater creates a lot of room for himself, but he seems to be shooting more.  He has 192 shots this season.  The most he had before that was 129 two years ago.

Looking at this afternoon's contest, all four goal scorers in the win over the Soo provided the offense this time around.

First, it was captain Rickard Hugg with just over three minutes gone. But his goal was answered by a Richard Whittaker marker at the tail end of a four-on-four with 7:51 left in the first.

Garreffa snapped one from the slot area late and the Rangers had the one-goal lead after 20 minutes.

Jonathan Yantsis extended the lead with his 41st of the year — 18th on the power play — on an easy tap in after some pretty passing with about eight minutes played in the second.

About five minutes after that, Greg Meireles was below the goal line and banked a shot off Steelheads goalie Jacob Ingham and into the goal.

Nick Isaacson went top cheese on goaltender Luke Richardson late in the middle frame on a two-on-one chance to cut the Ranger lead to two.

The Steelheads started the third on the man advantage, and was stonewalled by a big pad save from Richardson and some key defensive play from Mike Vukojevic in deep.

That looked like the best chance for the Steelheads in the final frame, as the Rangers shut the door after that.

But the horn didn’t go until after Garreffa nabbed his second of the afternoon — and 66th point of the season — taking advantage of a turn over at the Steelhead blueline and streaked in alone with just over seven minutes left.

Richardson turned aside 28 shots in the win, while Ingham stopped 27 of 32 in the loss.

And with Owen Sound taking a 9-0 shelacking at the hands of the Niagara Ice Dogs, Kitchener is now two points clear of the Attack for fifth place in the Western Conference with nine games to go.

These two teams will lock up again Wednesday morning in Mississauga for a School Day game.

Broadcast time on 570 NEWS starts at 10:30 a.m.