Kitchener Rangers 2024-25 Season Thread, Part II

[Fastpace]

LOL, watching the post game interview of the Rangers Coach I’m thinking this wasn’t the game plan nor was he happy with the way his team played. Of course other than the goaltender who was brilliant back there especially with his rebound control.

I did not see the interview, I will admit. I am pretty sure it would be destructive for him to only criticize a close game, and not finding some positive from it for his team to work on. If you want more from your team, you need to send that message, you say exactly what coach Ahokas said in post interview. Telling the team was really close and more is needed, it wouldn't be surprising if you'd follow him into the privacy of the office, to see him rubbing his hands for the evening job well done. But yes, I have to say I am surmising here because I did not hear his comments after the game

 

[Sane Knights Fan]

This is exactly what playing defensive hockey is all about, they gave up a lot, and London did not score a lot. That appeared to be Kitchener's game plan from the beginning, keeping the low score, meaning they had a chance to tie and even win the game near the end. We all know how well Kitchener has played offensively up to now, it's obvious of the change, to play a run and gun game against a strong London team would have been suicidal for the Rangers. Maybe I am wrong, but that is my take on the game.

Nope wrong again. Like I said defense other than Parsons was not good. If your game plan is to keep it close by playing poor defense but expecting your goaltender to stand on his head to bale you out every night it just won’t work. Who cares if Iam a knights fan that game would of been 6 to one if it wasn’t for Parsons

 

[bobber]

Nope wrong again. Like I said defense other than Parsons was not good. If your game plan is to keep it close by playing poor defense but expecting your goaltender to stand on his head to bale you out every night it just won’t work. Who cares if Iam a knights fan that game would of been 6 to one if it wasn’t for Parsons

Who would of thunk Knight fans would be on the Ranger site disagreeing with each other? Sounds insane Sane.

 

[Jives]

I did not see the interview, I will admit. I am pretty sure it would be destructive for him to only criticize a close game, and not finding some positive from it for his team to work on. If you want more from your team, you need to send that message, you say exactly what coach Ahokas said in post interview. Telling the team was really close and more is needed, it wouldn't be surprising if you'd follow him into the privacy of the office, to see him rubbing his hands for the evening job well done. But yes, I have to say I am surmising here because I did not hear his comments after the game

Don’t understand either. We got really badly outplayed and Parsons stood on his head. London goalie had to make 1 good save I can remember. If that’s how we wanted to play then the coach should probably be fired. Could have been 8-1 without Parsons and if London connected on a could more passes.

 

[Ward Cornell]

LOL, watching the post game interview of the Rangers Coach I’m thinking this wasn’t the game plan nor was he happy with the way his team played. Of course other than the goaltender who was brilliant back there especially with his rebound control.

As Mike Tyson said "Everyone has a plan until they get punched on the nose"!
Rangers just need to figure out how to start punching noses.

Game went how I thought it would and deep down hope it would. We need to recoup picks!

 

[Generalsupdates]

Watched the whole game last night and Parsons was unbelievable. Also wasn't sure Pridham would make much of an impact because he never really put up points in his prior league, which isn't a great league, but he looked really good. He'll be a big addition

 

[RangerNation]

As Mike Tyson said "Everyone has a plan until they get punched on the nose"!
Rangers just need to figure out how to start punching noses.

Game went how I thought it would and deep down hope it would. We need to recoup picks!

Not to mention that is how London will play come playoffs. Yes, they haven't played like that against everyone, but we all know Hunter has the green machine on maximum against Kitchener. If any team wants an idea of what they are going up against, just rewatch this game. And it's only November...

 

[Gondrex]

This makes for an interesting season as there seems to be a lot of OHL calibre players sitting on rosters fighting for playing time? My point is who will be buying and how much will these trade able assets bring in return? I honestly think it’s going to be a massive buyers market and a lot of players teams want to move are not going to be moved. London right now has probably 5 lines they could ice and will have to make some decisions about who to drop to Jr B who to trade and who to cut loose. Bit of an odd season in my mind?

I am in agreement Buttsy. So that is my worry. Those teams close to being on the fence (Kitchener ?), may be tempted to "add some cheap assets" only to have their dreams dashed when the games start to mean something.

So there is hope if you are a seller. In the supply-demand world they say the cure for "high prices is high prices". Perhaps in this case, the same can be said for the other end of the spectrum. We'll see.

 

[Fastpace]

Don’t understand either. We got really badly outplayed and Parsons stood on his head. London goalie had to make 1 good save I can remember. If that’s how we wanted to play then the coach should probably be fired. Could have been 8-1 without Parsons and if London connected on a could more passes.

Of course, everyone wants to see the team push offensively, you will hear or read often coaching saying, offense start from the defense. The season is long, unfortunately, despite their great efforts, Kitchener does not have London experience, and this game, and more will come is ideally made to gain that experience. If you can look at long term, you can see of how all of these close games will help Kitchener in the future, for this season and more so for the next two after. Although Parson was in his zone, and was outstanding, the ideal is to rely less on your goalie and more on the over team play, starting from your collective defense and moving on to your offense after, got to look far ahead of last night's game to make any sense of it all, it's a long process in progress Got to learn to play the best to be the best

 

[EvenSteven]

I am in agreement Buttsy. So that is my worry. Those teams close to being on the fence (Kitchener ?), may be tempted to "add some cheap assets" only to have their dreams dashed when the games start to mean something.

So there is hope if you are a seller. In the supply-demand world they say the cure for "high prices is high prices". Perhaps in this case, the same can be said for the other end of the spectrum. We'll see.

Realistically, I think we’ll likely be in a position where we can get value for Andonovski, and maybe Parsons but only if a team’s starter crashes or suffers a long term injury. That’s it.

Swick and Miseljevic we’ll get low balled on so MM keeps them.

 

[moose311]

I don't know what the stats were for faceoff percentage but it seemed like London won at least 80% of them.

34-28, so London won almost 55% of faceoffs.

 

[Billyjack]

The lack of respect shown by some for other programs and teams is embarrassing and appalling quite frankly.

this is laughable, ever read your own forum. respect is earned.

 

[Ward Cornell]

this is laughable, ever read your own forum. respect is earned.

I think you misinterpreted at who Buttsy is referring to, it's his own Knights board.
Buttsy is a great poster I always have time for his posts.

 

[Billyjack]

Typical Rangers fan always optimistic until…
Lol

I was never optimistic about Rangers beating this London team. Rangers are in a rebuild in case you didn't notice. If this young Ranger team beat the Knights would have been fun but not expected. We are hoping MM trades all the older players and let the kids play. Hoping he trades our older players to an east team to help them beat London

 

[rangersblues]

Someone mentioned that London had a lot of sloppy passes which they'll clean up. I'd like to counter that slightly that the Rangers did clog up passing lanes and caused a lot of those sloppy passes. Trouble was Kitchener was on their heels and London was so fast, so London retrieved almost every loose puck uncontested.

Parsons did play a great game and made a lot of fantastic saves. But it was rare that he was completely left hung out to dry, which is often the case where one team is so dominant in puck possession. I think you have to at least give the Rangers team defense coverage credit for that.

 

[Knights Watcher]

Who would of thunk Knight fans would be on the Ranger site disagreeing with each other? Sounds insane Sane.

We don't consider FP a Knights fan

 

[robertmac43]

This has to be a sell year. Stockpile assets, scout well, plan for the two years ahead of us. Thats when this club will do its damage.

 

[SFC]

Thank goodness they lost, that early victory against the Knights last year felt like the turning point that made McKenzie go into buy mode (to be fair, I supported that decision at the time).

Honestly, I'm... really happy with how this season has played out. The Rangers have exceeded expectations early, the young guys are looking good, the influx of talent into the league with the NCAA rule change is exciting, and London might be historically great. Yeah, it sucks that it's London, but I am always here for greatness. Their fans just have to behave, haha. (Fill in the blank: This London team is the best team in the OHL since __________________. I say the 2013-14 Storm.)

Also, in the immortal words of bobber, I'm going to "eat crow" on McKenzie, he's certainly made his mistakes but I think over the last couple years he's made some particularly shrewd moves (the Rehkopf trade, hiring Ahokas, the whole 2023 draft) to the point that he's comfortably an above-average GM in this league now, I think. We won't talk (too much) about his Spott-like incapability to assess the competitiveness of his team or the pre-Ahokas coaching carousel.

 

[rangersblues]

Thank goodness they lost, that early victory against the Knights last year felt like the turning point that made McKenzie go into buy mode (to be fair, I supported that decision at the time).

Honestly, I'm... really happy with how this season has played out. The Rangers have exceeded expectations early, the young guys are looking good, the influx of talent into the league with the NCAA rule change is exciting, and London might be historically great. Yeah, it sucks that it's London, but I am always here for greatness. Their fans just have to behave, haha. (Fill in the blank: This London team is the best team in the OHL since __________________. I say the 2013-14 Storm.)

Also, in the immortal words of bobber, I'm going to "eat crow" on McKenzie, he's certainly made his mistakes but I think over the last couple years he's made some particularly shrewd moves (the Rehkopf trade, hiring Ahokas, the whole 2023 draft) to the point that he's comfortably an above-average GM in this league now, I think. We won't talk (too much) about his Spott-like incapability to assess the competitiveness of his team or the pre-Ahokas coaching carousel.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to say the 2015-16 London Knights. The Marner, Dvorak, Tkachuk line was the best line in recent memory (maybe since Shutt, Gardner and Harris) and they had great depth on all the lines. Guelph was also a very good team but were missing the top caliber players London had.

 

[bobber]

Thank goodness they lost, that early victory against the Knights last year felt like the turning point that made McKenzie go into buy mode (to be fair, I supported that decision at the time).

Honestly, I'm... really happy with how this season has played out. The Rangers have exceeded expectations early, the young guys are looking good, the influx of talent into the league with the NCAA rule change is exciting, and London might be historically great. Yeah, it sucks that it's London, but I am always here for greatness. Their fans just have to behave, haha. (Fill in the blank: This London team is the best team in the OHL since __________________. I say the 2013-14 Storm.)

Also, in the immortal words of bobber, I'm going to "eat crow" on McKenzie, he's certainly made his mistakes but I think over the last couple years he's made some particularly shrewd moves (the Rehkopf trade, hiring Ahokas, the whole 2023 draft) to the point that he's comfortably an above-average GM in this league now, I think. We won't talk (too much) about his Spott-like incapability to assess the competitiveness of his team or the pre-Ahokas coaching carousel.

If you want my recipe for Crow Pie I'll look it up. Don't choke on the feathers there nasty.

 

[OnlyUpFromHere49]

Don’t take this as gospel but wondering if the hold up on Haeden Ellis signing has to do with the USHL apparently hiking up transfer fees as a way to protect at least some of their players ($50k+ for some bodies)