It's beautiful outside but here I am, sitting alone in the pressbox. Still want to be a sports reporter?
Seriously though, life is good and it's nice to be back on the beat full time again.
So we have a friendly against the Fish this afternoon. It's an early test to see how the lads have fared over the summer.
Several veterans are sitting this one out as a healthy scratch.
The rest line up like this.
Kitchener:
Mason Kohn-Ryan MacInnis-Justin Bailey
Brandon Robinson-Gustaf Franzen-Nick Magyar
Jacob Cascagnette-Adam Mascherin-Scott Teskey
Mark Bzowey-Connor Bunnaman-James Mense-Dietrich
Liam Maaskant-Logan Schmidt
Doug Blaisdell-Dylan Di Perna
Sean Allen-Dmitrii Sergeev
Matt Greenfield gets the start with Izzy Benigno backing up.
Mississauga:
Bobby MacIntyre-Jesse Barwell-Nathan Bastian
Josh Burnside-Mikey McLeod-Austin Gerhart
Jordan Addesi-Everett Clark-Lucas Venuto
Cody Thompson-Kris Hamlin-Noah Robinson
Sean Day-Jared Walsh
Nick Zottl-Stephen Gibson
Greg DiTomaso-Jacob Graves
Cam Zanussi starts with Dawson Carty backing up.
Give goalies time
Believe it or not, I've already been getting lots of feedback regarding the Rangers' netminding situation. Some fans are already calling for guys to be traded or released and pointing to performances in scrimmages from training camp as their back up.
Can we give the goalies a break at least until we're actually into the season? It's training camp and exhibition play. That's the time they get back into game mode and try new things they've been working on in the summer.
Had Kitchener's goalies not allowed a goal in scrimmages, fans would be disappointed in the forwards and demanding we solve the scoring problem.
Let's just all take a deep breath and let it play out. Or, in this case, begin.
Puck points:
- In case you were wondering, there were no changes to the Rangers hockey ops in the off-season. Everyone is back on the hockey side.
- PP units in the first for Kitchener were: Robinson, Teskey, Mascherin, Sergeev and Di Perna and MacInnis, Bailey, Magyar, Franzen and Schmidt.
- Franzen got a nice round of applause from the crowd after he kept the puck away from Mississauga for about 25 seconds on a PK. The Fish were so frustrated that centre Everett Clark took a roughing penalty against Franzen to negate the PP.
- Kitchener outshot Mississauga 19-6 in the first period.
- D Sean Allen has committed to the Kitchener Rangers. He was a third round pick (41st overall) in this year's draft.
- Some standouts - Brandon Robinson has upped his physical play, Franzen's puck possession was tight while James Mense-Dietrich looked good on PK and showed some hustle.
- Bailey, Maaskant and MacInnis wore the 'A' on their sweater.
- Ryan MacInnis scored for Kitchener while Josh Burnside replied for Mississauga. Lucas Venuto was the lone scorer of the four players the Steelheads swent ot the shootout. Gustaf Franzen and Nick Magyar scored for the Rangers in the saw-off.