Grayden Gottschalk’s late tally and Gianluca Baggetta’s brilliance earned the Rangers a point Sunday as North York fell 2-1 in overtime to the Georgetown Raiders.
Baggetta, making his first start since the Eastern Canada Cup All-Star event last week, made 34 saves on the night, while Georgetown’s Andrew Masters stopped 32 of 33 North York shots.
Rangers head coach Brent Hughes was impressed with what he saw all around from both teams post game.
“I would say it was the best hockey game I’ve seen all year to be honest,” he said.
“It really could have gone either way, it was a great hockey game, and it was too bad that things kind of came down to things out of our control. We’ll take the point, but our guys are playing great and I was happy with what I saw from them tonight.”
Georgetown’s Josh Dickinson, himself just back from the all-star event, opened the scoring on a rebound at 3:22 of the second period, after Baggetta had kicked out a shot from Ashur Elliot.
Gottschalk scored on a similar play with 1:10 remaining in regulation, chipping past Masters in tight after a rebound to send the contest to overtime.
“Grayden knows who he is as a hockey player,” said Hughes.
“He’s a big body and he gets to the front of the net and he gets to the right areas. For a guy his size to be a big net front presence, he’s tough to move and he’s strong on the puck, and he gets rewarded because he knows what he needs to do to be successful.”
It took a power play goal on a questionable penalty call against North York’s Tyler Currie at 19:22 of the third period to give the Raiders the extra point.
The Rangers are now unbeaten in regulation in the three games since the all-star tournament after defeating Kingston and Milton on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
North York will next face a tough test when it travels to Trenton on Friday to battle the Golden Hawks. Puck drops at the Duncan McDonald Memorial Gardens at 7:30 p.m.
