They put themselves in a tough spot.
In the end, it was a hole they couldn’t dig themselves out of.
The 2025-26 Ontario Hockey League season came to an end for the Soo Greyhounds on Friday night, 24 hours after an emotional win extended it by one more day.
The Kitchener Rangers scored five unanswered goals en route to a 5-1 win over the Greyhounds Friday at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
Greyhounds coach John Dean called it “definitely not our best game.”
“They outplayed us tonight,” added overage forward Marco Mignosa.
Greyhounds captain Brady Martin agreed.
“(Kitchener) just came in with a mindset that if they beat us, they didn’t want to come back to the Sault and we got outplayed,” Martin said. “We didn’t play our game and we couldn’t find it.”
With the win, the Rangers advance to the Western Conference final where they will take on the Windsor Spitfires, beating the Greyhounds in five games to move on.
After coming out of the first period of Friday’s game tied at one with nine shots on the board, the Greyhounds generated just seven shots in the final two periods of the game and were outshot 23-7 over the 40 minute stretch.
“The second period is probably our worst period of the series,” Dean said. “You have to give Kitchener some credit too. They were very good. They did a great job of forcing us into turnovers through neutral ice, not getting pucks behind their D. They have a heck of a second period.”
“They were managing the game well,” Mignosa added. “They were tight in their D zone, blocking shots, getting pucks out. It was tough to generate. They played us pretty well.”
Dean also talked about the ability of the Greyhounds to come back in games as being a good thing as well as a bad one.
“You can’t keep putting yourself in those spots and tonight wasn’t our night to come back,” Dean said.
Following the series-clinching win, Rangers coach Jussi Ahokas said he felt the Rangers “were the better team in this series.”
“We played a bad 10 minutes in the whole series,” Ahokas said, speaking with RogersTV. “All in all, we were solid. We defended well; we got big goals. (The Greyhounds) had great goaltending, but still, we could score.”
It was the opening minute of the game that the Greyhounds opened the scoring as Quinn McKenzie went to the net and redirected a pass from Noah Laus past Rangers goaltender Christian Kirsch 54 seconds in. After Carson Campbell turned the puck over for the Rangers defensively, Harris Pangretitsch got the puck at the point and fed Laus to the left of the net and Laus hit McKenzie at the edge of the crease for the goal.
Kitchener tied the game 4:01 later as Cameron Arquette found himself in the slot and redirected a pass from Haeden Ellis past Greyhounds goaltender Carter George. The goal came moments after a defensive zone turnover by the Greyhounds that saw Cameron Reid start the passing play that led to the goal.
The Rangers would take a 2-1 lead at 7:41 of the second period when Jared Woolley skated into open ice in the Greyhounds zone and took a pass from Sam O’Reilly on the right wing. Woolley proceeded to beat George under his blocker side arm on a breakaway after taking the feed.
Dylan Edwards extended the Kitchener lead at 13:38 as he took a pass on the right wing from Alexander Bilecki in the slot and beat George short side on the power play to make it a 3-1 game.
O’Reilly sealed the win for the Rangers with a pair of empty net goals late in the game, the first coming with 2:55 to go to make it 4-1 before he scored the final goal of the night for the home side in the final minute of play.
George made 29 saves for the Greyhounds in the loss.
“He gives us an opportunity to potentially have a comeback in the third,” Dean said. “The shots after 40, it’s pretty lopsided and Carter was fantastic. We gave him way too much work over the course of the series, but specifically tonight in that second period.”
O’Reilly had two goals and two assists for the Rangers in the victory.
Edwards added a goal and a pair of assists while Woolley chipped in with a goal and an assist and Bilecki assisted on a pair of goals.
Kirsch stopped 15 shots for the Rangers.
