Rangers drop first game of back-to-back with Knights

The Kitchener Rangers are the latest team unable to solve the London Knights.

London won their 13th game in a row with a 4-2 win against the Blueshirts at The Aud on Friday night.

Kitchener led 2-0 after early 2nd-period goals from Matthew Andonovski and Cameron Mercer, but London would score the next four goals unanswered.

Rangers Head Coach Jussi Ahokas shared his thoughts on what went wrong.

“Their first goal, a little bit soft play from us, we didn’t get it out and pucks went through. Mistakes happen, 2-1,” Ahokas said. “Then we have a power play, we should be in there, and we’re too casual playing in that situation and they get the 2-2 goal. In the 3rd period, we were in the (penalty) box pretty much the whole period.”

The Knights finished the game with six power play opportunities and four of those came in the 3rd period.

The result puts the Knights just one point behind the Rangers for first place in the Midwest Division standings.

That sets up an important game on Saturday afternoon between the teams. CityNews 570’s Colour Commentator Paul Fixter outlined the stakes.

“Quite simply, if Kitchener wants to hang on to first place, go win a game in London and you maintain that. That’s what it comes down to,” Fixter said. “They are capable of doing that. They’ve done that once already this year, they beat London 4-2 a number of games ago, but they’re capable of doing that. I think they’ll have a little bit of revenge on their mind.”

Pregame coverage of Saturday’s game begins at 3:30 p.m. on CityNews 570.

You can listen to Friday night’s Rangers Talk post game show by clicking here.