Brandon Caputo
@BCaputo_AGM
The Kitchener Rangers entered their first round matchup in the Western Conference against the Flint Firebirds as the third seed in the conference, despite having the second most points in the Ontario Hockey League this season, due to the London Knights capturing the Mid-West Division title and the Windsor Spitfires being awarded the second seed as the other division winners.
The underdog Firebirds did not get the memo early as Matthew Wang would stun the hometown crowd at "The Aud" of 6703 by open the scoring for the Michigan-based team late in the opening period.
A pair of goals in the middle period by Trent Swick on the powerplay and former Niagara IceDog forward Andrew Vermeulen, who had a career season with the Rangers, gave Kitchener a one-goal lead. Flint would answer right back as Matthew Mania would even up the contest less than three minutes later, heading into a 2-2 tie going to the final frame.
Trent Swick would give the Rangers the lead once again off a turnover in the Firebirds end and the Vegas Golden Knights prospect would pot his second goal of the contest. The pesky Firebirds would answer once again as Nathan Aspinall would respond less than a minute later, sending the game to the first overtime period of the 2025 Ontario Hockey League playoffs.
At the 5:07 mark of the opening overtime period, it was Luca Romano receiving the pass from Adrian Misaljevic and sending the hometown Rangers crowd into a frenzy, lifting favoured Kitchener to an opening night 4-3 victory against a Flint team that is not to be taken lightly as the series goes on.
Jackson Parsons stopped 26 of 29 in the victory while Nathan Day stopped 29 of 33 in defeat.
Game 2 takes commences Sunday at 2:00pm from the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
