Friday night marked the third time in 12 days the Rangers found themselves matched up against the Trenton Golden Hawks. North York lost the previous two meetings by a combined score of 18-5. Fast forward to Friday where North York hoped to take one from the Golden Hawks on the road.
With the Rangers down 1-0 late in the first period, Elias Greenwood scored his second goal of the season to tie the game at 1 which is where the first period ended.
From there the Golden Hawks showed why they belong atop the Eastern Conference outscoring the Rangers 9-1 across the final two periods to earn a 10-2 victory. Cole Kirton (1) scored the Rangers only other goal of the game, his first career OJHL goal. Amir Valiullin got the start making 48 saves in the loss.
The only other game the Rangers played this weekend was at home against the Aurora Tigers.
The bottom two teams in the East faced off Sunday afternoon in a back and forth affair.
Less than five minutes into the first period, Andreas Mikrogiannakis opened the scoring for the Tigers giving them a 1-0 lead. Before the end of the first Charlie Hotles (3) tied it up and despite taking 3 penalties in the period, North York killed off all 3 and the teams went into the second period tied at 1.
Midway through the second period the Tigers iced the puck after a lengthy shift leaving tired legs on the ice. Off the draw the Rangers controlled the puck and eventually Cole Bowditch’s (2) shot found it’s way to the back of the net giving North York a 2-1 lead – a lead that didn’t hold for long. Kyle Baston scored two and a half minutes later to tie this one up at 2 heading into the third period.
Mikrogiannakis got the scoring started less than two minutes into the third period giving Aurora a 3-2 lead. Less than three minutes after that Peter Smith (5) scored on the power play for the Rangers tying the game at 3.
That was the last time the teams exchanged goals, as Aurora scored the next 3 goals and went on to beat the Rangers by a final score of 6-3. Amir Valiullin made 37 saves in his league leading 10th appearance of the season. Both Cole Bowditch and Charlie Hotles finished the game with 1 goal and 1 assist.
That completes a challenging month of September for the Rangers. There are no games the first weekend of October, but here’s what the upcoming schedule looks like:
October 7th @ Cobourg (2-5 9th in East) 7:00PM
October 8th vs Wellington (4-4 7th in East) 4:30 PM
Fast Facts
Cain Tucker played in his 100th career game with the Rangers this past Sunday against Aurora.
Cole Bowditch is tied for 2nd amongst Defenceman with 11 points on the season.
Amir Valiullin has stopped 427 shots this season. That’s 123 more than the next closest goalie.
The Rangers played 12 games in September compared to just 7 in October.