By Jamie Neugebauer, Staff Writer
John Carpino scored his third career hat trick and Corey Kalk had this 16th multi-point game of the season as the Rangers upended Hamilton 6-3 on Sunday.
After the game, head coach John Dean felt that his team did not play as hard as they should have against the struggling Red Wings.
“It’s just a mental thing with hockey players,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of speech you make before the game, they’ll play like that when they think lightly of the other team.”
Carpino started the scoring 58 seconds into the game, and then tallied again at 4:24 of the first period.
Nicholas Geiser converted his breakaway at the 5:36 mark of the second period, while Ryan Kinsella’s banged-in rebound, and Taylor Pryce’s wrist shot made it five heading into the third.
Carpino finished the scoring with a nice move to his backhand at 6:56 of the third.
Jacob Keogh had his first win in net for North York since Nov. 4, making 22 saves. Hamilton’s Bret Gilmore stopped 37 shots, many of them from extremely dangerous scoring opportunities, for the loss.
“I wasn’t happy with the effort,” Dean said, “but we’ll take the two points.”
The Rangers are next in action on Wednesday when they host the Burlington Cougars, puck drop at 8:00 pm.
