After 18 years of waiting, the Kitchener Rangers are the champions atop the OHL’s western conference.
The Kitchener Rangers defeat the Windsor Spitfires in Game 5 at The Aud, winning 5-4 in overtime.
Windsor came to play with their backs against the wall, as they scored the opening goal for the third time in the series, then added another just 15 seconds later. Windsor’s Wyatt Kennedy and Kitchener’s Luke Ellinas exchanged goals the rest of the way to give the Spitfires a 3-1 lead after the first.
The Rangers’ red-hot power play found another tally in the series, as Christian Humphreys scored his seventh of the playoffs to make it 3-2.
Windsor would add another to lead 4-2 into the third, where playoff goal-scoring leader Sam O’Reilly would outskate the Windsor defence to pot his 14th goal of the postseason.
With just twelve minutes to go, Carson Campbell would complete the comeback, scoring from the high slot to tie the contest up at 4-4.
After a back-and-forth overtime full of excellent goaltending, the Rangers finally found the winner, as Dylan Edwards sniped a wrist shot from distance past Joey Costanzo, to give Kitchener the 5-4 overtime victory over Windsor.
The Rangers outshot the Spitfires in every period, including overtime.
The series win awards Kitchener with the Wayne Gretzky Trophy as OHL Western Conference champions for the first time since 2008, the most recent year the team won the OHL Championship.
The Blueshirts will now face the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals, a series led by the Brantford Bulldogs over the Barrie Colts three to two as of May 1.
