The Parkland Rangers are slowly falling out of the playoff race in the Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League after a pair of losses over the weekend.

The Rangers dropped a 5-3 decision to the Winnipeg Wild, Saturday in Winnipeg, before losing 7-1 to the Interlake Lightning, Sunday in Teulon.

As a result, Parkland’s record falls to 10-15-2-1 for 23 points, five back of the eighth-place Norman North Stars.

Rangers head coach Tyler Carefoot was pleased with the team’s play against Winnipeg.

“I thought, for the most part, we were in that game right from pretty much start to end,” he said.

Twice the Rangers trailed by three goals, but they pulled to within one with 2:41 remaining.

“We didn’t quit. We had good structure. We had good work ethic and we found a way to keep the game close,” Carefoot stated, adding he wondered to himself whether to pull the goalie or not. “One of my veteran players heard that and said, ‘what have we got to lose?’ So we did (pull the goalie) and tried to make a push and in the end, they got the empty netter to make it 5-3. But overall, it was a good game,” he said.

Sunday’s game was a result of a lack of self-discipline on the part of some of the Parkland players, who had a late night despite getting back to their hotel by 10 p.m.

As a result, one player slept in and missed the team breakfast at 9 a.m., which did not please the coaching staff, while others were not attentive during a video session prior to leaving for Teulon.

During the pregame warmup, the Rangers did not leave the ice in time, resulting in a delay of game penalty to start the contest. Interlake, subsequently, opened the scoring on that power play to start the game and things went down hill from there.

“Everybody was off. Guys that we lean on to perform really well, those guys were all off. We didn’t have our routine. Everything about our routine was off,” he said. “And it goes back to the night before and it goes back to the morning. And then we can’t expect these players, you can’t sleep in and then go on the ice and be a high-performance athlete and perform at a high level when you’ve only been up for three hours.”

Carefoot admitted to being angry at the situation and felt it was a lack of self-discipline that resulted in Sunday’s loss.

“At some point there has to be some self-accountability,” he said, adding the Rangers have proven they can play with any team in the league, with the exception of the Brandon Wheat Kings. “But in order to do that, our structure has to be good and our work ethic has to be good. It’s just all those little things that we talk about. We have the capabilities of doing all that,” Carefoot said. “But the moment we choose to either take a shift off or a game off, or in this case, some guys chose to basically not want to show up at all, it’s very frustrating.”

Having said that, Carefoot recognizes that Interlake is one of the top teams in the league, currently sitting in third place.

“Interlake is for real. They’ve got a nice roster there. It’s not a fluke or an accident that they’re a top four team this year. I think that’s great to see. The last several years, they’ve been battling at the bottom end, so I think that’s great for their program,” he said.

The Rangers will look to right the ship this weekend when they face the second-place Southwest Cougars in a home-and-home, beginning, Friday in Dauphin at 7:30 p.m., with the rematch in Souris on Saturday.

The teams split a home-and-home, Jan. 6 and 7.

Southwest is another team the Rangers can compete with.

“They’re very structured. They don’t have any flashy players that pull you out of your seats, but they have non-negotiables that play within their structure. Hopefully, we can match that and we can be ready, because every point now going forward is just so important,” Carefoot said. “The game results over the weekend, the teams that we’re battling with, they either split or they found a way to get four points. So we need points. And so we need to be ready to execute and, hopefully, that’s the case.”