A lack of urgency and compete resulted in the Parkland Rangers winning just one of three games over the weekend.
In the team’s annual Hockey Fights Cancer Game, the Brandon Wheat Kings scored five times on the power play en route to a 9-2 win.
The next day, it was the Norman North Stars which took advantage of Parkland’s penalty kill, scoring three times in a 4-2 victory.
Parkland got a measure of revenge, Sunday afternoon, when they connected four times on the man advantage in a 10-1 rout of their northern counterparts.
Rangers head coach Tyler Carefoot said Brandon’s top players proved to be hard to play against, which is something he hopes his players can take away from that game.
“That was the message that we wanted to have overall, as an entire team. We don’t have three or four players that are going to break the game open. We’re a team that has to work together,” he said.
Prior to Saturday’s loss, Carefoot asked his players what type of player to they want to be.
“All these players and families aspire and hope that they’re going to play at higher levels of hockey. In order to do that, you need to ask yourself if you are a competitor. If you are tough to play against and you have that internal drive to be the ultimate competitor. And (Saturday) we lacked that,” he said.
The Rangers turned things around, Sunday, and earned the two points to build some momentum going into next weekend, when they host the winless Kenora Thistles, Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
Despite the number of power-play goals the Rangers gave up, Carefoot said that is not why they lost.
“It just comes down to being ready to play and being hard to play against and tough on pucks. It doesn’t matter what level of hockey you watch, whether it’s the NHL, the junior leagues, the Western League, junior A, the Kings, all the language is the same. And that’s the question you have to ask yourself. Am I hard to play against?” he said.
“Going forward, we have to have that mindset. Every player. You have to be on the right side of pucks. All of us need to buy in. And that’s the message going forward.”
