Although North York battled back in the second period from down two to take a 3-2 lead, three penalties in the span of 45 seconds in the third gave the Blades two consecutive five-on-threes, and the visitors made no mistake.
Rangers head coach John Dean was highly disappointed by his team’s tendency to retaliate after the game.
“I told them that they let their teammates down,” he said outside the locker room. “Any kind of stick penalty…slashing, tripping…there’s no upside to it.
“I talked about going to war for your teammates the right way, that’s not the right way.”
The much-talked-about Renouf twins, Jonah and Nathan, took turns scoring early in the second period. First Jonah backhanded a rebound into an open net 3:21 into the middle frame, and then Nathan won a faceoff on the power play, headed straight to the net, and shoveled home a backhand of his own past Jacob Keogh in the North York net.
John Carpino on the power play, Chris Aitcheson shorthanded, and Patrick Simmonds at even strength on a counter-attack gave the Rangers a lead with three goals in just over four minutes as it looked as though North York would pull away.
But with the man advantage, the Renoufs are lethal.
“They scored three power play goals,” Dean said. “You put them on the power play they are going to make you pay.
“I thought five-on-five [Taylor] Pryce, [Chris] Aitcheson, and [Ryan] Kinsella (the line assigned to cover them) handled them just fine on five-on-five. They outshot us 33-32, and they had 11 power plays and we had three; so I think the math is pretty simple.”
Nathan Renouf and Kyle Jenkins capitalized on long five-on-threes in the final period (both assisted by Jonah Renouf), while a late Matthew Whittaker slashing penalty snuffed out any realistic chance the Rangers had for a late come-back.
“My players were undisciplined, bottom line,” Dean said. “They put themselves in position take penalties, and for the most part the calls were right.”
Notes: Adam Valadao sat out with injury despite playing last Saturday in Toronto … Jacob Keogh made 29 saves in his first game as a Ranger while Evan Buitenhuis also stopped 29 … the Rangers had 24 minutes of penalties to Oakville’s eight
