Playoffs!
Kitchener Rangers lose opener to Owen Sound
OWEN SOUND — Any time their local heroes deal the Big City Villains a blow, the narrative plays well in the tiniest Ontario Hockey League city. And lately, that’s been a lot. The league’s hottest team, the Owen Sound Attack, did what they’ve done for most of the season, handing the visiting Kitchener Rangers a 9-1 smackdown in Game 1 of this best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final on Friday night.
The Attack — winners of seven of eight regular-season meetings with the Rangers — have suffered just two regulation losses in league play since Dec. 9.
In fact, the last time Owen Sound lost in regulation, a 5-2 defeat to Mississauga on Feb. 20, the leader of the free world was only slightly terrifying.
The Attack’s vaunted power play, operating at a league-best 28.4 per cent clip, will likely be the cause of sleepless nights for the Rangers for as long as this series lasts. That may not be long.
The hosts looked pretty good five-on-five, too, scoring six of their goals at even strength on Friday before a jubilant crowd of 3,035 at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.
Since the Rangers entered this series with the league’s secondworst penalty kill — an anemic 77 per cent efficiency — team discipline will be paramount throughout this series.
“It’s good you said that,” Rangers head coach Jay McKee said before the contest. “We have three keys to success against (Owen Sound). No. 1 — I don’t know if I ‰Full game summary: C2
could’ve written it any bigger on the board — is discipline.
“We have to play hard and physical but we have to be intelligent in how we do that.”
Discipline will remain the watchword for the Attack, too, said Owen Sound’s head coach Ryan McGill, whose charges were extra careful not to be goaded into dumb-dumb penalties on Friday.
“We are the second-most disciplined team in the OHL. I don’t think we are going to change our game just because someone else is trying to push (us),” McGill said.
“Our game isn’t going to change. Our guys understand the consequences of every action.”
The Attack stormed to a 2-0 lead at the first intermission on evenstrength markers from two of their five plus-30 goal men, Jonah Gadjovich and Kevin Hancock.
Owen Sound ignited for three more goals in a 3:55 span in the second when Maksim Sushko, Petrus Palmu and Cordell James hit the scoresheet.
The hosts carried a resounding 7-0 lead into the third.
Did we mention Owen Sound’s goaltending? Michael McNiven entered the game unbeaten in seven regular-season matchups with the Rangers. The league leader in wins (41) and goals against average (2.30) was as advertised, foiling what few quality chances the Rangers mustered until late in the third.
Kitchener winger Cole Carter ruined McNiven’s shutout bid with an unassisted goal on Attack captain Santino Centorame’s giveaway deep in the Attack zone with six minutes left in the game.
Kitchener’s puckstopper, Luke
Opilka, got the hook in his only previous OHL playoff appearance. He suffered the same fate on Friday when he was yanked after two periods in favour of Luke Richardson.
These teams hooked up in a regular-season match a week ago, with Owen Sound coming out on top 7-2.
And so, McGill said there is absolutely no reason to change a thing.
“We need to do as good of a job as we’ve done in the past three months looking after what we can control,” said McGill.
The Rangers’ game plan the rest of the way will be to throw the Owen Sounders out of sync — whatever it takes.
“We are prepared for that,” said McGill. “We’ll see how good we are about making adjustments and how good we are about turning the other cheek.”
Owen Sound blue-liner Jacob Friend echoed that sentiment. “We are going in with the mindset that we aren’t worried about anything else but ourselves,” said the Bowmanville, Ont. native.
McKee said there is no reason to lose hope now or any time. The Rangers will embrace the role of underdogs.
“You see it at the end of the season when teams are out of the playoffs. They go out. They have nothing to lose. They can be dangerous,” said McKee.
Owen Sound outshot the visitors 50-25 on Friday.
Game 2 goes Saturday night in Owen Sound. The teams hit the Kitchener Aud for Game 3 on Monday at 7 p.m.