Kitchener Rangers give Tyler Randell a shot at redemption: OHL post-game questions

Game 7s for everyone. The Kitchener Rangers gutted out a tight victory over the Plymouth Whalers to send their series back across the border for a seventh game on Tuesday. The Ottawa 67's took another step toward pulling off a comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit by winning beating Barrie. Colts forward Erik Bradford will have two nights to get the vision of the open net he missed in the third period out of his head before the decider. On with the post-game questions.

Kitchener 4 Plymouth 2 (Western Conference semifinal tied 3-3; Game 7 on Tuesday) — How well will the Rangers channel the emotional lift they will get Tuesday when Tyler Randell rejoins their lineup? Down to its last strike in the series, Kitchener drew heavily on the idea of making sure the rugged overage winger's time in the Ontario Hockey League would not end with him sitting helplessly in the press box. Thanks in large part to Ryan Murphy turning in a performance on the blueline that was world-class (no, he could not have helped Team Canada in January, not at all, he did not type sarcastically), the Rangers pulled through.

Randell got a 10-game suspension last month for a head check on Owen Sound's Artur Gavrus in the first game of the playoffs. He will give the Rangers a lift, especially if 6-foot-5 forward Andrew Crescenzi is unable to return after missing Sunday's game with injury. The question, of course, is how the Rangers find something new to spur them on as they shoot for the upset.

"The motivation tonight was Tyler Randell," Rangers coach-GM Steve Spott told Kitchener's News 570. "We talked a lot about it before the game and in our meeting this afternoon. We wanted to get Tyler back in this league and allow him to wear his sweater one more time. So it obviously meant a lot to the guys in this room. For [overage captain] Mike Catenacci and a lot of guys, we wanted to win tonight. I give a lot of credit to our guys. To win a game like that with no 19-year-olds in your lineup and only two overages says a lot about the character of this group.

"It means a lot [to have Randell back] because we've got guys who are fatigued and he's pushed himself to stay in game shape," Spott added. "Hopefully he's going to give us a good shot of adrenaline. We need that right now. It's a physical game, but we're adding a very physical player. We're realistic. We know what we're getting into. We read that predictions in the papers [of a Plymouth victory]. We took those to heart."

Whom in particular do the Whalers need more from in the series decider on Tuesday? The snappy answer would probably be all 19 players, although New Jersey Devils goaltending prospect Scott Wedgewood was superb in stopping 40-of-43 Rangers shots. Some possible culprits might include some of the Whalers forwards who were unable to pick up the slack caused by Ottawa Senators first-rounder Stefan Noesen's absence.

The third line with overages Andy Bathgate and Jamie Devane was outplayed by their all-rookie Rangers counterparts, 16-year-old Brent Pedersen and Brandon Lesway and Curtis Meighan, both 18. That trio combined for only 30 points in the regular season, yet it produced the winning goal five minutes into the third period when Meighan got his first playoff goal by tipping in Ben Fanelli's slapshot after a substandard Whalers clearing attempt was held in at the blueline.

"They've been resilient all year," Spott told News 570. I looked at it before the game with Murray Hiebert, our head scout and I said, 'Murray, we're going to need something special from these young guys. Our third line went against Devane and Bathgate, two guys who've been in this league for five years. I'm awfully proud of this group. There's not many adjectives you can't use tonight to describe our effort. The first star was our fans. They made the [2008] Memorial Cup sound quiet."

Ottawa 3 Barrie 2 (Eastern Conf. semifinal tied 3-3; Game 7 on Tuesday) — What has Ottawa done better to get back in the series? Their top line, the Sean Monahan-Dalton Smith-Tyler Toffoli troika, is as delivering as strong an all-around game as it has at any point in the past three seasons.

Toffoli's critics are fairly legion and they'll be heard from if the Los Angeles Kings prospect's team should lose Game 7 on home ice like it did two seasons ago. He's been labelled as a one-way player, which contributed to him being left off Team Canada this fall and not receiving a tryout during his 18-year-old year. Yet there he was helping protect a late lead when Barrie got a 6-on-4 advantage late in the game. Monahan and Smith, a Columbus Blue Jackets second-rounder, also take care of their own end much better than some of Toffoli's other linemates.

All told, they've helped keep Barrie's big three forwards, Colin Behenna and Winnipeg Jets picks Mark Scheifele and Ivan Telegin, to a grand total of two assists in these past two games.

Is Game 7 a whoever-breaks-through-first-wins scenario? One can see it going that way. The Colts' post-mortem on Sunday was that they had overconfidence masked as confidence. Before they knew it, they were down 3-0 less than 25 minutes into the game.

From Stephen Sweet:

The Colts can surely play the nothing-to-lose card even though they were rated as a slight mathematical favourite coming into the series. Ottawa should be considered the favourite. It's won the last two games without really being able to bury many of its chances against Barrie's Mathias Niederberger and has outshot Barrie 109-80 across the past three. The Colts have played this series in a way that hints at a certain inner strength, so they're hardly whipped yet. An early goal on Tuesday might put the wind back in their sails.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.