*OFFICIAL* Kitchener Rangers 2014 Off-Season Thread

[Ringing Iron]

Franzen came out strong and recorded three points but seemed to fade as the game went on. Certainly a smart and slick forward

Alex Friesen was definitely a standout. His puck pursuit and non-stop motor would be great in the bottom six. Certainly outplayed many vets.


Bailey is a fun player to watch. He just knows where to go to get goals. You can't teach that. Four goals


I liked a Nicholas Doddy on the point. Not big but smart.

Mascherin was virtually invisible for two periods. Although that is his game. His shot is ridiculously quick and he can strike so fast. Wasn't his best showing but he'll get better

Hora looks poised for a big year

I liked Sean Allen and Connor Hall heading into last years draft and I feel both played very well. Poised. Good skaters. Definitely outplayed some vets

Goaltending leaves a lot to be desired at this point in time.

 

[bobber]

Although the camp is a small window to view the progress made by the Rangers veteran tenders over the summer they look no different than last season. Weak goal after weak goal. I see it as a huge issue going into this season. Teams go no where with out decent goal tending. I agree with dean youngblood on Alex Friesen. I noticed his speed in the practice sessions.

 

[avalanches78]

last scrimmage

Well I have been to yesterday evening scrimmage and half of this morning scrimmage. I am thinking that goalie wise we will get our fist cut this afternoon, and I believe it will be this years draft Cime who will get cut. He allowed 4 goals last night and another 4 today.

Izzy on his end only allowed two goals last night and allowed none at this morning's scrimmage. So I think he will still be getting a shot. Greenfield also only allowed 2 last night and none this morning. He seems to be better than Dekort who allowed 4 last night, three I thought he should have had and 1 this morning even though one went it at the last second as the buzzer was going.

If things continue this way I can see Dekort getting traded/waived probably waived, and Greenfield and Izzy fighting over the number 1 spot.

Mascherin has an amazing shot he scored in the front of the net on Greenfield last night with a pass that didn't stay on his stick for more than a fraction of a second. Great to see that from him. He did the same on Dekort this morning but hit the numbers on the jersey.

Bailey is scoring at will right now but I felt like no one wanted to hit him and he is not going to get that kind of treatment in real games. The pleasant surprise in his play I thought was Robinson who seems to hit and protect the puck a little better it would be nice to see him play to his potential this year. He is so big he can be a great power forward. Logan Schmidt also did a lot of great plays carrying the puck out of his zone so I cannot see him not making this team he has bulked up and he is as fast as last year.
Don't know if everyone saw the same thing I did but I think we will only be able to really judge were we are after these kids see some real competition later (games).

 

[OHLFan90]

Yeah, I went to 2 scrimmages and as much as it is a small window the goaltending I found was terrible. I will let Cime off the hook as a 16 year old who wasn't considered to make this team this year anyways. Benigno was pretty decent for a 17 year old. I could see him maybe playing a few games this year. Out of the 2 Vets, Neither of them have warranted a #1 goalie on any team in this league but I am willing to give them at least 12-15 games to work it out in the regular season.

On a side note, I really like this Alex Freisen (spelling?) kid. I know he played a lot of hockey last year for the Jr.B flyers.

I also didn't like how invisible Curtis Meighan was in both games. I wasnt expecting him to light the lamp but as an OverAger I expected him to come into camp and make a difference

 

[CharlieGirl]

Josh Brown ‏@BrownRecord · 2m
Kitchener Rangers camp cuts: Julian Sime, Dede Cato, Mitch Rooney, Alex Friesen, Anthony Salemi, Rafael Lecours, Nathan Hudgin, Kosta Likourezos,
Jake Schultz, Nick Trecroce, Quinn Wichers, Nick Boddy.

None sound like a big surprise other than Friesen.

 

[OHLFan90]

Josh Brown ‏@BrownRecord · 2m
Kitchener Rangers camp cuts: Julian Sime, Dede Cato, Mitch Rooney, Alex Friesen, Anthony Salemi, Rafael Lecours, Nathan Hudgin, Kosta Likourezos,
Jake Schultz, Nick Trecroce, Quinn Wichers, Nick Boddy.

None sound like a big surprise other than Friesen.

Maybe Salemi, I thought he played well enough to maybe move on. But your right none to surprising. I really like that Julian Sime, I think a year of Jr A and he could potentially move into a role with the rangers next year or the year after.

 

[Ward Cornell]

delete...duplicate of CG's post

 

[avalanches78]

Yeah I do not think there is any surprise there for the cuts. I think Friesen as well as he played had to compete with too many other guys some who had OHL experience to make the cut on this roster. Right now there is basically 7 forwards that are not what I would call locks that need to fill only 2 position left open in the forwards position.

This is the list of the forwards left I placed the names I see as locks in bold.
Forwards: Brent Pedersen, Ryan MacInnis, Nick Magyar, Justin Bailey, Gustaf Franzen, Darby Llewellyn, Brandon Robinson, Curtis Meighan, Mason Kohn, Mike Davies, Adam Mascherin, Connor Bunnaman, Scott Teskey, Mark Bzowey, Jonny Edelson, Jacob Cascagnette, and James Mense-Dietrich

So if you don't want to waste a kids time so they can develop somewhere with good minutes you might as well cut them loose right away and let them play at the level they can get top minutes, mainly talking about Friesen here.

 

[Ward Cornell]

Yeah I do not think there is any surprise there for the cuts. I think Friesen as well as he played had to compete with too many other guys some who had OHL experience to make the cut on this roster. Right now there is basically 7 forwards that are not what I would call locks that need to fill only 2 position left open in the forwards position.

This is the list of the forwards left I placed the names I see as locks in bold.
Forwards: Brent Pedersen, Ryan MacInnis, Nick Magyar, Justin Bailey, Gustaf Franzen, Darby Llewellyn, Brandon Robinson, Curtis Meighan, Mason Kohn, Mike Davies, Adam Mascherin, Connor Bunnaman, Scott Teskey, Mark Bzowey, Jonny Edelson, Jacob Cascagnette, and James Mense-Dietrich

So if you don't want to waste a kids time so they can develop somewhere with good minutes you might as well cut them loose right away and let them play at the level they can get top minutes, mainly talking about Friesen here.

Edelson was cut also!

If I was a betting man the remaining surviving players from your list would be Bunnaman, Davies and Cascagnette

 

[BenchedGuy]

Edelson was cut also!

If I was a betting man the remaining surviving players from your list would be Bunnaman, Davies and Cascagnette

I would think Bzowey is still in the mix too. I think it will come down to Cascagnette and Bzowey for one of the final spots. Both saw some spot time at the end of last year.

 

[bobber]

Edelson was cut also!

If I was a betting man the remaining surviving players from your list would be Bunnaman, Davies and Cascagnette

I think I read a while back that Bunnaman was slated to plat for the Sugar Kings this season.

 

[BenchedGuy]

I think I read a while back that Bunnaman was slated to plat for the Sugar Kings this season.

I heard Hall was going to play for Elmira this year.

http://observerxtra.com/kings-excited-by-offseason-signings/

 

[avalanches78]

The first pre-season game was not too bad. I am not sure the shot clock was accurate, but we did have more scoring chances than the fishes did. The only goal Greenfield aloud was a defensive coverage missed on the PK. I did like the aggressive style of our new OA, he had quite a few good body checks. The veterans did show some good things but like the last the two years we need to finish and put the puck in the net.

 

[Ward Cornell]

I think I read a while back that Bunnaman was slated to plat for the Sugar Kings this season.

You may be correct (again) but like BenchedGuy posted I heard it was suppose to be Hall also. Nothing says that Bunnaman won't be heading there also. But logicistically I suspect a team still in a rebuild mode would want at least their 1st, 2nd (geesch its nice to finally nice to have one) and their 3rd round picks make the team.

 

[CharlieGirl]

The first pre-season game was not too bad. I am not sure the shot clock was accurate, but we did have more scoring chances than the fishes did. The only goal Greenfield aloud was a defensive coverage missed on the PK. I did like the aggressive style of our new OA, he had quite a few good body checks. The veterans did show some good things but like the last the two years we need to finish and put the puck in the net.

There were a couple of things that really stood out to me - Maaskant (as you mentioned), Kohn driving the opposition nuts (love that kid!), and Franzen's outstanding PK shift. It feels like it's been a long, long time since we saw forechecking like that. I also liked what I saw from Robinson.

I saw Iafrate in the hallway - he has definitely put on some muscle, and his size/grit will be very much needed back there, along with his defensive play. His shot was also noticeably missed on the PP.

 

[bobber]

You may be correct (again) but like BenchedGuy posted I heard it was suppose to be Hall also. Nothing says that Bunnaman won't be heading there also. But logicistically I suspect a team still in a rebuild mode would want at least their 1st, 2nd (geesch its nice to finally nice to have one) and their 3rd round picks make the team.

Ward you are just being nice because you know I have "old timers". Bench was correct. It was Hall. I think we saw a report on the sports about it. Thanks Bench for the link.Could not remember which player it was. Brown seems to be impressed with Bunnaman. He also see's an issue with team defense overall. Same as last season with poor coverage around the net. On the other side of the coin there seems to be an issue with players not being able to finish. It would be nice to see some new blood injected into the line up with a couple of these young players making the roster.

 

[Ward Cornell]

Ward you are just being nice because you know I have "old timers".

We both have 'oldtimers' for a while now but 'sometimers' is coming on strong!

 

[OHLFanFriendly]

How was Davies performed thus far?

He is a player I would really like to see bust out this year and put all those observers that questioned his high draft status (myself included) criticisms to rest.

 

[BenchedGuy]

How was Davies performed thus far?

He is a player I would really like to see bust out this year and put all those observers that questioned his high draft status (myself included) criticisms to rest.

He is injured currently. Not much to go off of.

 

[OHLFanFriendly]

thanks.

Do you know the nature of the injury? Did he come to camp with it or sustain the injury at camp?

 

[avalanches78]

thanks.

Do you know the nature of the injury? Did he come to camp with it or sustain the injury at camp?

He sustain it while training, not at training camp though, so he came to training camp with it. I can't remember the nature of the injury but they expect him to be available before the end of training camp. I saw him during the game against Mississauga, he was sitting in front of us, it was nothing easy to spot. He doesn't have a limp or a sling showing where the injury is. So since he is walking around the Aud it hopefully means day to day and he should be ready pretty soon. Then we can see if there is improvement this year compare to last.

 

[BenchedGuy]

thanks.

Do you know the nature of the injury? Did he come to camp with it or sustain the injury at camp?

Don't know when it happened. He will be back in the lineup soon.
Its in one of Josh Brown's Blog or tweets somewhere. Could make it back for a preseason game.

EDIT: ^^ answered it better. Thanks Avalanche

 

[Ward Cornell]

Don't know when it happened. He will be back in the lineup soon.
Its in one of Josh Brown's Blog or tweets somewhere. Could make it back for a preseason game.

EDIT: ^^ answered it better. Thanks Avalanche

I heard that he has a back issue but nothing serious.

 

[UsernameWasTaken]

Read the Rangers game was stopped tonight. What happened?

 

[Melrose]

18 inch hole in the ice that went right down to the cement. Needed at least 2 hours to harden properly.