KELOWNA, BC – It’s official. The Kitchener Rangers and Vancouver Canucks prospect Gabe Chiarot will be playing in Sunday’s Memorial Cup final after a 3-2 victory over the Chicoutimi Saguenéens.

The first period was the slowest of the entire tournament thus far. However, the Saguenéens had a much better start than their previous outings. They managed to outshoot the Rangers 8-5, and at no point were they getting dominated territorially. The first period would end as the game started, with a 0-0 scoreline, marking the first scoreless period of the tournament.

However, the game wouldn’t stay scoreless for long, after Tanner Lam stripped the puck off Alex Huang, and Luca Romano went in and sniped the opening goal in off the rush to open the scoring. And in typical Rangers fashion, they built on their lead two minutes after off a Sam O’Reilly rebound. Five minutes later, the Saguenéens got on the board with a rush goal of their own. The score would remain 2-1 after 40 minutes.

Memorial Cup leading scorer Jack Pridham found yet another goal off a far slap shot from the corner of the zone to restore the Rangers’ two-goal lead. However, the biggest talking point came nearly halfway through the third period when Saguenéens defenceman Jordan Tourigny stomped on Christian Humphreys’ foot three times.

Dirty play from Tourigny. He was assessed a match penalty for his actions. Per the CHL, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety will handle any further discipline.

Rangers head coach Jussi Ahokas had this to say postgame on the play: “That’s a cowardice play. Stomping with the skate. That’s not hockey. That’s coward hockey. That’s not in our values. That’s the cheapest thing you can do in hockey.” Ahokas did not have an update on Humphreys’ status postgame.

The game really kind of lost all of its energy after that. With the worry of their teammate on their mind, the Rangers could not generate much, even when Anton Linde took another penalty, awarding them a 5-3. At this point, the Rangers were just playing for the end of the game, which allowed the Saguenéens to pull themselves to within one off the stick of Mavrick Lachance. But that’s as close as they would come.

KIT 1-0: Luca Romano (1), from Tanner Lam (1).

KIT 2-0: Sam O’Reilly (2), from Jack Pridham (2) and Dylan Edwards (3).

CHI 2-1: Emile Ricard (1), from Nathan Lecompte (4) and Christophe Berthelot (1).

KIT 3-1: Jack Pridham (4), from Dylan Edwards (4) and Sam O’Reilly (2).

CHI 3-2: Mavrick Lachance (1), from Emmanuel Vermette (1) and Liam Lefebvre (2).

The Rangers are so good on the counterattack. Nearly every goal they score in this tournament comes off a neutral zone turnover that leads to an odd-man rush the other way. Christian Kirsch remains a reliable backstop for the Rangers, while Jack Pridham has scored in all three of the round robin games. His goal came off a Saguenéens screen on their own netminder, but sometimes players catch a hot stick, and everything seems to go in for them. Ahokas did not like their first period for the second straight game. With all the pressure now on them as the undefeated team, we’ll see how they come out in the first 20 minutes of the final. They have experience on their side, with this being Sam O’Reilly and Jared Woolley’s third consecutive Memorial Cup final.

Chicoutimi got out to a better start, but did not have that second-period surge that they had in their first two games. Considering they were not able to capitalize early, it ultimately cost them. The Saguenéens could not afford those neutral-zone turnovers, especially against that opponent’s counterattack threat level. Chicoutimi head coach Yannick Jean was still optimistic about their chances of making it to the final, whether that be through a play-in game or a semifinal match.

As he has for most of the tournament, Romano’s speed popped tonight. He got the scoring going early in the second period by beating Lucas Beckman on the rush. But even away from the puck, Romano was hounding on the forecheck. The New York Islanders third-round pick chased Tomas Lavoie from behind the net, through the neutral zone, into the defensive zone, and wound up stealing the puck from behind. Romano had the lone goal on the night, finishing as a plus-one rating while winning 58.3% of his draws.

Lachance was buzzing tonight. In the first, he had a spinning backhand pass behind the net that nearly set up Linde for a tap-in goal. Fast forward to the third period, and Lachance made a strong cut to the net front and nearly flicked the puck past Kirsch. In the dying minutes, Lachance buried a cross-crease pass from a falling Vermette to give his team a (La)chance. He ends the night with a goal, four shots on goal, and a 55.6% faceoff percentage.

Chiarot began the line on the top line, but fell victim to Ahokas’ line shifting for the second period. The Canucks product fell to the third line again, but that’s where he succeeded against the Silvertips. Chiarot didn’t have much on the night, but there was one play where he displayed a heavy, power forward move when he cut to the net with a Saguenéens defender on his back and shovelled the puck over to a teammate for a shot on net. He would later get elevated back to the top line after Humphreys’ injury, and was trusted in the last minute of the game to defend the one-goal lead. Chiarot had zeros across the board outside of a minus-one rating.