Coetzee a bright light for Rebels
CALGARY — A year older and 20 pounds heavier, a wiser and stronger Willie Coetzee is primed to provide for the Red Deer Rebels.
Actually, Coetzee made his first delivery — times two — for the Rebels during a 6-3 Western Hockey League preseason-opening loss to the Calgary Hitmen Tuesday before roughly 1,000 fans at Centennial Arena.
The 18-year-old forward was arguably the best player on the ice and was certainly the visitors’ top performer, scoring twice while displaying a super set of wheels, a lightning-quick shot and the ability to fight through checks.
“I feel I’m more mature this year . . . and stronger. I got bigger during the off-season and already I feel more confident and more experienced,” said the Maple Ridge, B.C., native, who started the 2007-08 season with the Rebels but was reassigned to Cowichan Valley of the junior A BCHL after 23 games.
“I thought Coetzee was outstanding,” said Rebels head coach Jesse Wallin.
“His strength was really evident tonight and he showed that his one-on-one skills are very solid.
“What a difference a year makes. He has the strength now to get by guys and he plays strong down low. He played with a lot of courage tonight, which was good to see.”
Coetzee opened the scoring 6:43 into the contest, scooting down the left side and beating Hitmen starting netminder Chase Komistek from his off wing.
Calgary, however, fired the next three goals — all on the power play — before Coetzee tallied again at 12:14 of the middle frame, this time accepting a stretch pass from defenceman Kevin Woodyat, breaking in alone and whipping a rising shot past David Aime, who saw spot duty with Red Deer during the second half of last season.
The Hitmen added two more man-advantage markers — and were five-for-eight on the power play on the evening — for a 5-2 lead after 40 minutes.
The Rebels finally connected on their eighth power play of the contest, cutting the deficit to two at 16:32 of the third period when Colin Archer moved in from the point and buried a nifty feed from 15-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
The Hitmen closed out the scoring three minutes later, with MacKenzie Royer beating Red Deer goaltender Darcy Kuemper on a breakaway.
“We came out pretty strong tonight and I thought we were pretty good out there five-on-five,” said Coetzee.
“We forechecked well, we just didn’t do a lot of the little things right.”
Jason MacDonald notched two goals for the Hitmen, who got additional markers from veterans Matt Mackenzie, Ian Duval and Bostjan Golicic.
“I thought we had a pretty good start tonight,” said Wallin. “I thought we came out hard and did some good things early five-on-five, but then obviously we got into penalty trouble. We haven’t spent a lot of time on the penalty kill and we really gave up a lot of point shots.
“It was evident we need some work on our penalty kill and in particular our wingers up top and in our own end of the rink. Still, we made some progress tonight. We have a long way to go, but that’s a start.”
Wallin was impacted by the performance of forwards Nugent-Hopkins and Daulton Siwak, both 15.
“Ryan was excellent. For a 15-year-old kid he has very good awareness. He’s good at both ends of the rink and he made a heck of a play on our last goal,” said the Rebels bench boss.
As for Siwak . . .
“By all accounts he had an excellent camp with the (midget AAA Rebels) during the weekend and he carried that over into this game. He made some defensive mistakes but his effort was excellent. He’s a hard-working kid who’s good with the puck and he competes both ways.”
Calgary, which dressed an older lineup, outshot Red Deer 37-17. Kuemper went the distance in the Rebels net and wasn’t at fault on any of the six goals he surrendered.
“Darcy battled hard,” said Wallin, whose club next takes on the Kootenay Ice at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Stettler. “He takes up a lot of net and he played big. But we have to get stronger in front of our net. We gave up a lot of second and third chances tonight.
“But we’ll work on those things this week and get better for Friday.”
Contact Greg Meachem at sports@reddeeradvocate.com
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