The Parkland Rangers find themselves back in the Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League playoff race after earning three of four points from the Southwest Cougars, this past weekend.
Two goals in the third period lifted the Rangers to a 3-2 victory, Friday in Dauphin. On Saturday in Killarney, Nate Robson netted the winner with 35 seconds left in overtime to give the Cougars a 4-3 win.
Southwest led Friday’s game 2-1 after the first period on goals from Kelby Diehl and Sebastian Stone, while Dru Mushumanski replied for the Rangers.
After a scoreless second period, goals from Tavyn Boychuk and Hayden Seib erased the deficit and put the Rangers in front, and they hung on for the victory.
Glover was outstanding in net for the Rangers, finishing with 45 saves, while Southwest’s Micky Gross stopped 28 shots.
On Saturday, the Rangers had three different leads only to see Southwest to tie the game on each occasion.
Andrew Pidskalny and Mushumanski with two, scored for Parkland, while Nicholas Cullen, Stone and Luke Mackenzie replied for Southwest.
Evan Svoboda made 22 saves for Southwest, while Glover made 32 saves Parkland.
Rangers coach Tyler Carefoot was pleased with the team’s play in both games.
“I think Friday, other than our first period, I thought we were the better team in the second and third. I just thought, after we made some little adjustments going into the second period, we were the better team and I was very pleased,” he said. “Not only did we get the win, but just how we executed the game plan. It was good to see, considering it’s been a work in progress. And to finally have a game where, for the most part, we put everything together, it was gratifying, for sure.”
The Rangers are 3-2-1-1 in their last seven games and are now just six points behind the eighth-place Eastman Selects.
That is something the team talked about on Saturday, Carefoot said, about how if they keep picking up points they can get back into the playoff race.
“So we had to have the mindset that this is a playoff mentality. And (Saturday) night, almost from start to finish, I thought we were the better team,” he said.
Another topic of discussion was the need to hang onto leads.
“That’s something we’ve got to do a better job of is locking down some of these leads that we have,” Carefoot said. “But we stuck to the game plan, we outworked them and they got a late goal to tie the game and we went to overtime. Three-on-three, anything can happen.”
Carefoot has seen a lot of improvement from the team from the start of the season, noting the players are playing with more confidence and are feeling good about themselves.
The Rangers have a chance to close the gap on Eastman as they play the Selects, Saturday and Sunday in Beausejour.
Carefoot hopes the players have the mindset of sacrificing the body to make plays.
“I hope they have the mindset that we’re going to have to hurt. We’re going to have to take hits to make the right play and getting in lanes to block shots. That’s something we’re going to have to add to our repertoire this weekend,” he said. “Eastman is probably somewhat of a surprise this season. They’re usually at the top of the league and this year, they’re near the bottom. I’ve heard they’re a big team and I feel if we can continue with focussing on getting pucks behind their D and all of the things that we’ve been talking about, hopefully, we’ll have some success.”
