After a tough Game 1 loss, the Red Deer Rebels will look to bounce back Saturday night.
Red Deer will visit the Edmonton Oil Kings for Game 2 of the best-of-seven WHL Eastern Conference series at Rogers Place, with puck drop scheduled for 7 p.m.
The Rebels will need to find a way to slow down the Oil Kings’ offence. In its 4-0 Game 1 win over Red Deer, Edmonton scored four times on 35 shots, while the Rebels mustered just 18 shots.
Ten different Oil Kings recorded at least a point in the game, with defenceman Kaiden Guhle being the only player to record two.
Guhle leads the team with seven points in five games during the playoffs. Dylan Guenther, who scored the opening goal in Thursday’s Game 1, has five tallies in as many games.
In a four-game sweep of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in Round 1, Edmonton scored 18 goals while allowing six – four of those Lethbridge goals came in the final game of the series.
Red Deer will need to get its offence going as well after going scoreless in the series opener. Oil Kings goaltender Sebastian Cossa, a first-round selection of the Detroit Red Wings in the 2021 NHL Draft, has a .946 save percentage and 1.20 goals-against average through his first five games of the 2022 playoffs.
Like they have all season, Ben King and Arshdeep Bains are leading the Rebels offensively, with each recording eight points in seven games.
Red Deer went 0/2 on the power play in the first game of the series. The Oil Kings went 1/3 with the man advantage.
Chase Coward, who was pulled from the net in Thursday’s Game 1 defeat, has a .934 save percentage and 1.85 goals-against average in the playoffs. In his first appearance of the playoffs, Connor Ungar entered Game 1 at the start of the third period and stopped the eight shots he faced.
The Rebels will host games 3 and 4 at the Peavey Mart Centrium on Monday and Wednesday, respectively.
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