Playoff hopes on Ice
Ice 3 Rebels 2
One team clinched a Western Hockey League playoff berth Friday at the Centrium; the other squad was officially eliminated from the post-season race.
The Kootenay Ice got a third-period power-play goal from Andrew Bailey and then hung on for a 3-2 win over the Red Deer Rebels, sealing a playoff spot in the process. The Rebels played hard right to the final buzzer, as has been the case for the better part of the last few weeks, desperately attempting to avoid the inevitable.
Red Deer had to win and have Edmonton lose to Swift Current Friday to remain mathematically alive in the post-season hunt, but it’s over now. The Oil Kings did their part, falling 3-1 to the visiting Broncos, but the Rebels couldn’t keep their end of the bargain.
“Yeah, that’s frustrating,” said Rebels defenceman and captain Colin Archer. “We were playing every game with everything we had, but now we have to look forward and finish out the season strong.”
The Rebels surrendered what proved to be a costly goal in the opening minute of the contest, as Tylan Stephens was left alone in front of Red Deer netminder Darcy Kuemper and converted his own rebound at the 40-second mark.
“We weren’t as prepared at the start as we should have been and it cost us in the end,” said Archer. “But we certainly battled and it was a tough one to lose.”
Red Deer twice rallied from a one-goal deficit, pulling even on a first-period point shot from Joel Kot and then a second-period power-play marker by Landon Ferraro.
The visitors, with a two-man advantage, took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission on a goal by Kevin King with one minute remaining in the opening frame.
“It was another mistake on our part,” said Rebels head coach Jesse Wallin. “We lost the draw on the first kill, didn’t get the puck down the ice, spent most of the kill in our end and took another penalty. Then we got running around on the five-on-three. We let way too many pucks go through the box. We didn’t keep it tight and got spread out too much.
“But we played quite a bit better in the second and third periods and we did some good things. We worked pretty hard through most of the night. Our effort was there but a couple of mistakes ended up in our net and that was the difference.”
The Rebels, with three forwards already out of the lineup with assorted injuries, lost winger Brennen Wray to an illness at the end of the first period.
“We started the game with 11 forwards and played most of the game with 10,” said Wallin, who gave Connor Redmond, Josh Cowen and Adam Kambeitz plenty of ice time and watched the rookies respond in a positive manner.
“They’ve played very well for us over the second half of the season. They’ve made great strides,” said Wallin, who was also impressed with 15-year-old forward Daulton Siwak. “We got a lot of miles out of most of our guys tonight. It was a pretty good effort.”
Kootenay bench boss Mark Holick didn’t detect the same kind of work ethic with his team.
“Red Deer has played us tough all year long. They work extremely hard and they don’t ever go away,” said Holick. “We were good in the first period, not very good in the second and had just an average third. We didn’t play a great game. We had some passengers tonight but sometimes you have to win ugly.”
Ice netminder Tyler Mathews made 26 saves, including 10 in the final frame as the Rebels carried the play down the stretch. Kuemper stopped 22 shots.
The Rebels host the Swift Current Broncos tonight at 7:30 p.m.
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