Rangers blank Troops 6-0
Tanner Lam scored three goals and goaltender Jackson Parsons made 19 saves for his Ontario Hockey League-leading fifth shutout as the Kitchener Rangers defeated the North Bay Battalion 6-0 Friday night.
Alexander Bilecki provided one goal and one assist and Christian Humphreys and Jack Pridham also scored for the Rangers before 7,122 at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
Kitchener has a won-lost-extended record of 45-13-6 for 96 points, second in the Midwest Division and seeded third in the Western Conference. The Rangers are 7-0-1 in their last eight games.
Goaltender Jack Lisson faced 38 shots for North Bay, 25-34-5 for 55 points, fifth in the Central Division and eighth in the Eastern Conference, now only two points ahead of the East Division’s Ottawa 67’s, who edged the visiting Oshawa Generals 3-2.
The top eight teams qualify for the conference quarterfinals, with the Battalion and Ottawa each having four games left to play.
Humphreys opened the scoring at 1:00 of the second period, cashing a rebound from the goalmouth. Cameron Reid and Trent Swick assisted on Humphreys’s 10th goal of the season in 26 games.
With the teams skating four a side, Bilecki seized a turnover in the neutral zone, dashed into the right circle and beat Lisson with a drive from the dot. The unassisted tally was defenceman Bilecki’s third goal.
Reid took a double minor for high-sticking at 6:10, but the Battalion failed to threaten, and the manpower advantage was lost with 1:42 left in it when Ethan Procyszyn was whistled for elbowing.
North Bay had two more power plays in the period with nothing to show for them before Parsons had to cover up against Procyszyn at 17:58 after he and Jacob Therrien posed threats off a rush.
Lam struck at 1:09 of the third period, his shot from the right side barely trickling over the goal line, and Pridham made it 4-0 at 4:32 when he redirected Luke Ellinas’s pass into the net from close range on the right side.
Lam tipped a drive home from directly in front 35 seconds later and collected his 13th goal at 16:57 on a redirection from the right side.
In the first period Kitchener outshot the Battalion 13-4 despite Matthew Hlacar taking a major penalty for a head check at 13:47. The Troops applied moderate pressure early in the man advantage, but the Rangers grew stronger as it progressed and dominated late.
Before that, each team had one power play with no success.
The Battalion plays host to the Barrie Colts at 2 p.m. Sunday on CAA North & East Ontario Day when March Mania presents St. Patrick’s Day Bash.
BATTALION BULLETS: In the teams’ only other meeting, Kitchener won 5-2 at North Bay on Dec. 31 … The Battalion completed play against teams from the opposite conference, posting a record of 8-12-2. The Troops were 3-5-2 against the Midwest … The Battalion went 0-for-6 on the power play against the league’s second-ranked penalty killers. Kitchener was 0-for-2 … Opening lines were Procyszyn centring left winger Andrew LeBlanc and right winger Therrien, Zach Wigle centring left winger Shamar Moses and right winger Parker Vaughan and Ihnat Pazii pivoting left winger Lirim Amidovski and right winger Nick Wellenreiter. Nolan Laird centred left winger Stepan Chukharev and right winger Ryder Carey … Defence pairings saw Bronson Ride with Jacob LeBlanc, Aaron Enright with Kent Greer and Brayden Turley with Adrian Manzo … The Battalion was without Briir Long, Reyth Smith and Zach Wilson … Among the missing for Kitchener were Chris Grisolia and Matthew Andonovski, the OHL’s leader in penalty minutes, who celebrated his 20th birthday … Humphreys has a five-game points streak in which he has four goals and six assists for 10 points. An 11th-round pick in the 2022 OHL Priority Selection, he joined the Rangers in January from the University of Michigan. The Pittsburgh product was a seventh-rounder to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2024 National Hockey League Draft … Hillary Brennan and Mac Nichol were the referees.
