Rangers extend win streak to five, defeat Greyhounds Sunday

The Kitchener Rangers are now looking down on the rest of the league.

The Rangers are not just in first place in the Western Conference but first place in the Ontario Hockey League after another big win Sunday afternoon at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. They are now 9-1-0-0 on home ice.

Rangers forward Trent Swick scored two goals in the 5-3 win. Kitchener’s special teams played a huge role in the win. The penalty kill was a perfect 6-for-6 including a late 6-on-3 kill that sealed the win for the Blueshirts.

The powerplay was also clicking Sunday going 2-for-4. Filip Mesar added a goal and two assists, while Carson Rehkopf added to his goal total, scoring one in the first period for his league leading 19th goal.

Head Coach Jussi Ahokas said his team was prepared for a big weekend despite a slow start in the first.

“I didn’t like our first period, a lot of turnovers, we were a little sloppy and we weren’t ready for the 2 p.m. start,” said Ahokas post-game. “After that, we picked up our game a lot. Two powerplay goals, that was good. PK was really good. We stopped playing a little bit at 5-1 and let them get in by taking some ridiculous penalties. Good PK, Parsons was good in the net.”

Ahokas said he was happy with how his goaltender played in Sunday’s win. He was also impressed with how the team was helping Parsons by getting in front of shots that didn’t make their way to the net front.

“Motew huge block, Schmidt huge block, they didn’t get pucks through on their 6-on-3 so I really liked how the guys sacrificed themselves.”

Ahokas said the team is still learning all the time about what it takes to win even with the five-game win streak they are on.

“I think we’re confident, we won five in a row and not all of them are pretty,” said Ahokas. “We’ll take everything and we will keep going. We are learning all the time what it takes to win and that’s the good thing about it.”

The Rangers will be off until Friday when they welcome the Windsor Spitfires to town in the first of a home-and-home series with the Spitfires. Catch the game on CityNews 570 with the pre-game show at 6:35 p.m., with Mike Farwell and Paul Fixter.

You can also listen to Sunday’s Kitchener Rangers postgame show podcast by clicking here.