By Advocate staff
Hurricanes 3 Rebels 1
LETHBRIDGE — Time drags when you’re not having fun.
It was just two and half weeks ago that the Red Deer Rebels concluded a majorly successful four-game B.C. Division road trip. The jovial jaunt must now seem like months ago to the Rebels who suffered their sixth consecutive WHL setback on Tuesday, 3-1 to the Lethbridge Hurricanes before a gathering of 2,624 at the Enmax Centre.
Of course, the Rebels had pretty much their full complement of manpower during their fun run that featured six consecutive victories and a shootout defeat. These days, not so much.
Heading into Tuesday’s contest without the services of first-line forwards Turner Elson, Adam Kambeitz and John Persson as well as third-year centre Daulton Siwak and veteran defenceman Aaron Borejko, the Rebels were in plenty tough. And when their top rearguard, Alex Petrovic, was called for a checking-to-the-head major and booted from the contest late in the first period, the visitors were in bigger trouble.
Colten Mayor had already staked the Rebels to an early lead with his seventh goal of the season when the ‘Canes took advantage of the Petrovic call, Cam Braes beating Red Deer netminder Bolton Pouliot at 16:40.
Brody Sutter notched the eventual winner late in the second period and then scored a short-handed, empty-net marker with 1:23 remaining in the game.
The shots were 9-9 in the opening frame, the Hurricanes held a 15-6 advantage in the second and the Rebels outshot their hosts 11-7 in the final 20 minutes.
“I didn’t think we played poorly tonight, even in the second period,” said Rebels GM-head coach Jesse Wallin. “We weren’t able to generate a lot tonight because we didn’t get pucks through the neutral zone, but I thought that given our personnel we did a real good job of eliminating their (‘Canes”) opportunities.”
“They got the one goal in the second period, but the effort was there, as it was all night. The guys battled hard, but we have some younger, smaller guys who had trouble getting inside, to the front of the net. We had some opportunities, but you’re just not going to win many games scoring one goal.”
Indeed, the Rebels, with three of their top six forwards now out of commission, have managed just a single goal in each of their last four games.
“We have to find a way to score,” said Wallin. “We have power-play units that are a mish-mash of personnel, we’re just piecing units together as we go.”
That being said, Wallin praised the work of his penalty killers, whom he thought were unjustly put to work following the major penalty to Petrovic.
“I thought it was a poor call,” said Wallin, “and I thought it was a real poor non-call on a hit on Cowey (Rebels forward Josh Cowen) in the third period.
“It was exactly the type of hit that we’re trying to crack down on. Cowey was battling behind the net, engaged with another player. The puck was in his feet and a (third) player came in and ran him over with a shoulder check right to his face. If Petro’s was a major penalty, there’s no question at all that that was a major as well.”
Hurricanes netminder Damien Ketlo stopped 25 shots, while Pouliot, who is still looking for his first WHL win, made 28 saves.
“If there was one area that I would have liked to see us better at tonight, it was putting more pucks to the net,” said Wallin. “I thought we had opportunities to shoot and create those second chances, but we were hanging on to the puck a little too long sometimes and just trying to make one more play than we needed to. When you’re not scoring goals you have to simplify your game and get pucks to the net.”
The Rebels are hoping to have Persson back in the lineup tonight. The Swedish power forward was stricken with the flu and struggled to get around the ice in a Tuesday morning skate.
Meanwhile, Siwak, Borejko and Kambeitz will remain out with injuries and Elson will serve the third game of a six-game suspension he was issued by the league head office on Tuesday for his hit on Lethbridge defenceman Macoy Erkamps during a 5-1 home-ice loss last Friday.
The league ruled that Elson followed Erkamps down the ice with considerable speed and did not hold up when he drilled the ‘Canes’ player into the end boards.
“It is what it is,” said Wallin of the extended sentence to Elson. “I’m disappointed, I was hoping it was going to be three or four (games). But those are dangerous hits.
“It’s a tough situation. It probably should have been a five-minute major during the game. Those are hits we’re trying to eliminate. On one hand it hurts you and on the other you hate to see that happen.”
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com