Kitchener Rangers 2023-24 Season Thread (Part 4)

[bobber]

I thought the Namestnikov hit was worthy of a boarding minor. Should have been called, but I don't think it was a major. I also thought Swick over-reacted. In this league you just can't fight an unwilling opponent. It's begging for a suspension. There are ways to do it without risking that.

Everyone is over-analyzing Kitchener's deficiencies last night. What you had last night was a team with absolutely nothing on the line, resting guys who weren't 100% against a team playing a playoff style. Simple as that. The Rangers lost some control of their emotions, much like the game earlier in London and paid a stiff price in penalties, which led to the score. That's all.

Not much else can be inferred from this game if you ask me.

Good point Tim. Just hoping the Rangers do a better job of controlling emotions in the playoffs

So what do you consider "rare" if the stats are 7 upsets out of 80 in the 1st round?

An uncooked steak.

 

[K2]

Swick gets 5 games. Returns game 4 of the playoffs.

And Coach Jeff Kyrzakos gets 2.

It would be nice to see an appeal. Sudbury did this as well.

Why not given how silly that went!

 

[rangersblues]

Not surprised really. I suppose they’re considering it bullying? By that I mean comparable to what Steve Downie did here years back. Jump and pummel an unsuspecting player.

I was pretty sure the suspension would leak into playoff games. I was hoping a little less.

 

[EvenSteven]

I was pretty sure the suspension would leak into playoff games. I was hoping a little less.

Not to worry. I’d expect Martin to slide into Swick’s spot?

 

[rangersblues]

And Coach Jeff Kyrzakos gets 2.



Why not given how silly that went!

I agree with the appeal. I'm unsure what deal with the devil the league made with the Sudbury player's suspension but I think they left themselves wide open for trouble. As far as I'm concerned a suspension should be a suspension no matter if it's regular season or playoffs.

That's the trouble with the OHL - no transparency! It makes it easy for some fans to say the league favours some teams over others.

 

[All the Answers]

I presume he'll get the last 2 reg season games, no more. He doesn't have a history, but on the flipside he doesn't have Boulton's immunity card.

Well this aged well. What a joke

 

[KRangersRookie]

This Swick issue should be very easy for the OHL either regular season suspensions carry into playoffs or they don't. The league has already made the decision they don't so Swick should be serving the first 3 games next season and anything other than this outcome is just and unacceptable decision by what is supposed to be the neutral and transparent governing body that we all trust.

 

[EvenSteven]

Even, as you know i love your takes and we have disagreed on here more than one time but there's no hard feelings. Friendly banter.


"This team was at the top of the standings leading up to the deadline. That wasn’t an accident."

I disagree.

Saginaw/Soo and London had all not made their deadline deals. Cowan missed the start of the season and then him and Bonk missed time during the WJC. The way our team has performed post trade deadline is who we really are. IMO. Hamara was fine, I’ll agree but buried on the 3rd pairing and that wasn't going to move the needle as much as say Beck/.Bloom has for Saginaw or Hayes/Frasca have for the Soo.

As you know i was in the soft sell camp. Selling off Mesar/ Bru and Sop were my suggestions. I think those moves could have landed us some valuable assets to build for the future and honestly i think we may have still ended up 4th in the conference. We did not have the roster/Draft cupboard for this to be a "buy" year.

I do think we could still pull off some magic. Parson's has shown the ability to steal a game and we have enough scoring punch to compete with almost anyone. Can we defend well enough?, that remains to be seen. Losing Martin is a big blow I’ll admit. Not this year’s Martin but healthy Martin, the one we saw against Windsor last year. That player we could really use.

We can both agree that Punnett looks nice in Red/Blue and White unfortunately it's for the wrong club. It's not lost on me how well Osh has performed post deadline.

We can agree to a point. But we were far and away in 1st with a massive goal differential to boot. I get it that the goal differential wasn’t going to last, but we missed players too. The Martin injury and Rehkopf to the WJC.

Had our D stayed as it was post Hamara / Schmidt trades, all we’d have been looking for at the deadline were two or three inexpensive depth moves.

It could be argued that the moves that London and the Soo made merely brought those teams up to the equal of what we were before our defence was decimated. Saginaw was always going to out trade everybody in the conference. That was a given. But there is no reason to think, that had our D been put back in order at the deadline, we couldn’t have been right there with London and the Soo today.

As someone posted, adding Punnett instead of Savard would have made sense but so would have adding Punnett and Savard instead of Sale. But all in all, we could have afforded to trade for all three considering what we paid for Savard / Sale and what Punnett went for. Our D would be in a lot better shape today than it is.

Sure, we were utilizing Hamara on the 3rd pairing which likely triggered the trade request but having him there made our D stronger and to be honest, Reid wasn’t better so Hamara should have been in his spot on the second pairing. With solid top four minutes, and some PP2 minutes, maybe there’s no trade request? Who knows?

 

[rangersblues]

We can agree to a point. But we were far and away in 1st with a massive goal differential to boot. I get it that the goal differential wasn’t going to last, but we missed players too. The Martin injury and Rehkopf to the WJC.

Had our D stayed as it was post Hamara / Schmidt trades, all we’d have been looking for at the deadline were two or three inexpensive depth moves.

It could be argued that the moves that London and the Soo made merely brought those teams up to the equal of what we were before our defence was decimated. Saginaw was always going to out trade everybody in the conference. That was a given. But there is no reason to think, that had our D been put back in order at the deadline, we couldn’t have been right there with London and the Soo today.

As someone posted, adding Punnett instead of Savard would have made sense but so would have adding Punnett and Savard instead of Sale. But all in all, we could have afforded to trade for all three considering what we paid for Savard / Sale and what Punnett went for. Our D would be in a lot better shape today than it is.

Sure, we were utilizing Hamara on the 3rd pairing which likely triggered the trade request but having him there made our D stronger and to be honest, Reid wasn’t better so Hamara should have been in his spot on the second pairing. With solid top four minutes, and some PP2 minutes, maybe there’s no trade request? Who knows?

My sentiments exactly!

 

[Coaches Coroner]

View attachment 838876

It looked bad from where he was, he stuck up for his teammate. I'm not going to criticize him for that. This team doesn't do that enough.
Also seems kind of on Orange stripe for backing away and letting Swick have at it. 5 games is excessive but ever since the Xhekaj days the league has had a conniption any time a Ranger does anything bad.
Despite the Sudbury precedent, I doubt it will factor into the decision because the league has no consistency.

The Namestnikov hit, imo, is something the people coming from other team threads to defend it, would also be here
complaining about it were the sweaters reversed (although in that situation I wouldn't be in their team thread complaining and talking about how said player won't be able to handle a bad boss at an office job because of it lol). It's borderline.

 

[dirty12]

It could be a blindside hit. The CHL rulebook is not very descriptive in what they deem to be a blindside hit. When searching for a better description of the criteria for a blindside hit, I found this in a random blog by Dani Arbuckle

https://www.weekand.com/healthy-living/article/blindside-hit-hockey-18059336.php

The Hockey Canada rulebook has a little more description using a 90 degree angle of approach for the criteria

Rule 7.4 – Charging » Rule Book Admin

rulebook.hockeycanada.ca

There continues to be much debate on what is or is not a blindside hit. When using either definition above, I believe this would constitute a blindside hit. The player receiving the hit is focused on the puck and his head is turned away from the checker. The checker comes from slightly behind (outside of the 90 degree angle of approach).

But, perhaps the OHL uses a different set of criteria?

I played the hit frame by frame the best I could. I would not consider it blindsiding because (Reid?) leaned in for contact first. He clearly moved from his line to the puck. Poorly timed imo as he appeared over committed prior to being hit.
If there is defined infraction for following through with a hit to a player that made himself vunerable. Namestrov is guilty of that.

 

[Matttheleaf]

Would have thought 3 games total, especially cause the league set the precedent that the suspensions to Sudbury players doesnt count for the postseason

Also to go off of this there were instances of a player fighting an unwilling player a handful of times this year and each time those players got 3 or 4 games. Kinda wild that Swick gets 5 with 3 being playoff games.

 

[dirty12]

Would have thought 3 games total, especially cause the league set the precedent that the suspensions to Sudbury players doesnt count for the postseason

Absolutely try to get those games count as regular season games only

 

[All the Answers]

I played the hit frame by frame the best I could. I would not consider it blindsiding because (Reid?) leaned in for contact first. He clearly moved from his line to the puck. Poorly timed imo as he appeared over committed prior to being hit.
If there is defined infraction for following through with a hit to a player that made himself vunerable. Namestrov is guilty of that.

In addition it's interference as no play on the puck had been made.

 

[EvenSteven]

In addition it's interference as no play on the puck had been made.

I have issue with that. The puck was right there. If anyone had possession at the point of the hit, it was Reid who was making a swipe at it. I don’t believe you actually have to touch the puck to have possession.

 

[bobber]

I have issue with that. The puck was right there. If anyone had possession at the point of the hit, it was Reid who was making a swipe at it. I don’t believe you actually have to touch the puck to have possession.

Jussi called the hit dirty. Blind sided boarding. Watching the video Reid is after the puck. Not sure if in control. He had two Storm players coming in on him. Namestnikov comes in from the side and hit Reid hard into the boards. Looks like it could be a blindside hit. Happened fast. We wait and see if the Rangers send in a video. Guess it's spilled milk anyway.

 

[dirty12]

In addition it's interference as no play on the puck had been made.

It is interference, but Reid made the first move for contact. I’m not sure you can call the interference on the one that hit the player that first intended to interfere

 

[dirty12]

Jussi called the hit dirty. Blind sided boarding. Watching the video Reid is after the puck. Not sure if in control. He had two Storm players coming in on him. Namestnikov comes in from the side and hit Reid hard into the boards. Looks like it could be a blindside hit. Happened fast. We wait and see if the Rangers send in a video. Guess it's spilled milk anyway.

Boarding is a penalty I never really understood, but the boards must be used …I can’t even explain what I’m thinking. Can a person be boarded 3’ from the boards?

 

[EvenSteven]

It is interference, but Reid made the first move for contact. I’m not sure you can call the interference on the one that hit the player that first intended to interfere

For me that’s not interference. The puck is right there before contact.

Between this and your views regarding a blind side, I see why no arm went up on the play.

 

[HockeyPops]

I played the hit frame by frame the best I could. I would not consider it blindsiding because (Reid?) leaned in for contact first. He clearly moved from his line to the puck. Poorly timed imo as he appeared over committed prior to being hit.
If there is defined infraction for following through with a hit to a player that made himself vunerable. Namestrov is guilty of that.

I do not see Reid lean in for contact. At all. I see him swiping at the puck and actually has all his weight on his left as he finishes the swipe as he is being hit. That's why he offers basically no resistance to the check.

 

[dirty12]

I do not see Reid lean in for contact. At all. I see him swiping at the puck and actually has all his weight on his left as he finishes the swipe as he is being hit. That's why he offers basically no resistance to the check.

I saw him put out the right leg to brace for contact and thought I saw his line to the puck altered a bit; but you’re right, he then opens up the hips to get his stick on the puck before getting smoked.
Now I’m thinking that was a great hit.

 

[bobber]

Boarding is a penalty I never really understood, but the boards must be used …I can’t even explain what I’m thinking. Can a person be boarded 3’ from the boards?

Does it matter 3 inches or 3 feet? I certainly don't know either. Sometimes refs use their own discretion on calls. In this case non call. A better explanation. If a pirate is made to walk the plank does it matter the length of the plank? All the pirates on their forum would discuss it after the guy goes in the water.

 

[ohloutsider]

Does it matter 3 inches or 3 feet? I certainly don't know either. Sometimes refs use their own discretion on calls. In this case non call. A better explanation. If a pirate is made to walk the plank does it matter the length of the plank? All the pirates on their forum would discuss it after the guy goes in the water.

Some of us pirates have longer planks, just sayin!

 

[digicamo]

Swick gets 5 games. Returns game 4 of the playoffs.

I’ve heard the news isn’t great on Reid so this potentially has us starting the playoffs without two key pieces

 

[bobber]

After last night's contest Erie is back in the fold as the Rangers dance partner in the playoffs. Storm and Attack at it tonight. Things could change again.