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By David Clark
One of the most entertaining playoff showdowns in OHL history took place last season with the Midwest Division leaders, the Kitchener Rangers (91 pts.) taking on the team from the West, the Memorial Cup winning Windsor Spitfires (106 pts.) in the Western Conference finals. The Rangers were confident that they would walk away victorious considering they lead 3 games to none in the series at one point but in a heartbeat, Windsor showed their prowess on the ice and sent the Rangers packing when they earned four straight to take the series.
A dejected Ranger team produced several budding stars last year who leapt into the NHL early this season. In particular, Jeremy Morin and Jeff Skinner successfully graduated to the next level this year. Most predicted that Kitchener would collapse when the two went away but other significant members of last season’s outfit had something to say about it.
The highly skilled Ranger team of 2010-2011 without Morin and Skinner are now fighting with the Owen Sound Attack for 1st in the Midwest (both with 33 pts.) and sitting 2nd in the Western Conference with the Attack behind Saginaw. Kitchener has a whopping 100 Goals For, 1st in the conference while the Attack are positioned at 98.
When Morin and Skinner vacated the premises early, Kitchener appeared to be shell-shocked for a while but regained their composure in a short period of time. Three equally impressive players on the team, Jason Akeson, Ryan Murphy and Gabriel Landeskog have all contributed heavily to the effort to reinvent the team when their best took the last train out.
Landeskog is presently the leading candidate as top prospect for the 2011 NHL Entry Draft and Murphy landed the #8 position in the early rankings. At the top, Akeson leads the Rangers and the entire OHL in scoring at the moment with 12 goals and 34 assists for 46 points (Nov. 21, 2011).
The three high scoring prospects are all in the top 15 in scoring right now in the OHL and stepping up to the challenge of making this team a winner this season. So far, so good!
A good example of their competitiveness, Kitchener’s fabulous three (with 8 straight wins behind them) hosted a game on this day against the surging Ottawa 67’s that ended up in a shootout where the Rangers saw defeat (5-4). In the effort, Landeskog supplied the home team with 2 goals and 1 assist and Akeson put away 1 goal and an assist. Murphy was idle, still sitting at #6 on the OHL score sheet.
Most of the experts agree that the Kitchener Rangers will possibly go deep into the playoffs this season with the help of these three scoring leaders who harnessed the team when others predicted the worst.
