Veterans Nick Leshuk and Tyler Flack scored two goals to help the North York Rangers to push through the Toronto Patriots 5-2 on Sunday, September 23 at the Herbert Carnegie Centre.
Patriots defenceman, Nicholas Favaro attempted to make a stretch pass to the opposite side of the ice deep in his zone. Aidan Casey picked it off and found Grayden Gottschalk behind everyone in front of the net. The captain faded the shot, before sliding the first goal of the gameat 7:20. Toronto responded just over a minute later though. Eric McAndrew put enough on his point shot, that it rolled past Rangers goalie Jett Alexanders, who got a piece of it.
In the second while Toronto was on the powerplay, Leshuk and Favaro were in a foot race for the loose puck. Leshuk didn’t just out muscle the defenceman right in front of the net, he capped off the individual effort going five hole on goalie Jesse Hodgson. The 20-yar-old was not done there. On an odd man rush, Ross Krieger threw it over to Leshuk and instead of shooting it, he did the complete wrap around for his second goal of the second with less than three minute to go in the frame.
In North York’s last home game, Flack picked up two goals against the Chargers. He added to his team-high stat. He won the draw in Patriots territory and be-lined towards the net. Flack tipped Ryan Grant’s point shot top corner. On the shift right after the goal, the Rangers line of Flack, Cole O’Hara and Adam who’ve been together since preseason created a ton of chances. The play ended with O’Hara bin the corner hitting Flack for the one timer goal less than 30 seconds later.
Tucker McIntosh registered his first-career OJHL goal midway through to the period to cut the deficit to three, but they couldn’t get any closer.
Alexander made 18 saves to snag his second victory of the season. Hodgson stopped 23 shots in the loss.
The Rangers and the rest of the OJHL head across to border for the Buffalo showcase on Tuesday. The team will play two games on Tuesday and Wednesday in front of scouts. Up first are the Georgetown Raiders at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. North York fell to the Raider 2-1 in double overtime last time they meant earlier in the month.
