Rebels 4 Raiders 3 (OT)
Matt Bellerive’s memory of the play that led to his winning goal was a blur.
“I don’t even know what happened really,” the Red Deer Rebels veteran forward said after sniping an overtime marker to lift the home side to a 4-3 overtime win over the Prince Albert Raiders in a WHL game viewed by 4,885 fans Friday at the Centrium.
“I just remember racing back for the puck and their D-man ending up with it. He fell and then another guy fell over him. I passed over to Bleacks (Conner Bleackley), he shot and then I picked up the rebound. It was a pretty good feeling.”
Bellerive, who beat Raiders netminder Cole Cheveldave with a high shot from 15 feet out, admitted the goal also brought an overwhelming sense of relief considering the Rebels coughed up a 3-0 lead in the final seven minutes of the third period.
“We let off the gas pedal a bit in the end, but I think we knew we were going to get it back and win,” said. Bellerive. “We played a pretty game until we gave up the lead so I think we had the confidence to get that one back. We battled and we deserved (the victory).”
Thanks in large part to a superlative performance from netminder Patrik Bartosak, the Rebels appeared to have their sixth win of the season in the bag with as little as seven minutes remaining in regulation time.
However, defenceman Sawyer Lange beat Bartosak through a crowd at 13:03 and the visitors struck for two more goals in the final two minutes with Cheveldave on the bench.
Standout rearguard Josh Morrissey pulled the visitors to within one at 18:17, jumping up into the play and capping a give-and-go with Leon Draisaitl, who then buried a rebound at 19:34 to force extra time.
“We played pretty sound for the first 13 minutes of the period, but we just got a little soft on plays and got caught out of position a bit,” said Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter. “Our awareness without the puck wasn’t good and then our play with the puck in our zone . . . we were erratic there.
“But we found a way to win. I know the kids are upset that we gave a point away to a conference team, but at the end of the day we got two. Our goal tonight was to get back into the win column. We’ve only won two of our last six games, we needed to start piling up some points.”
The Rebels opened the scoring on a power-play goal by defenceman Brady Gaudet, whose one-timer from the high slot got past Cheveldave with two seconds remaining in the first period.
The Red Deer power play cashed in again at 4:21 of the second period when Haydn Fleury’s rising wrist shot from above the circle deflected off Conner Bleackley and into the visitors’ net. Rhyse Dieno appeared to seal the deal early in the third frame when he pounced on a turnover inside the opposition blueline, cut to his right and whipped a volley to the far corner.
Then things got interesting as the Raiders mounted a spirited comeback.
That the visitors failed to score in the first 53 minutes was largely due to Bartosak, who was rightly selected as the game’s first star.
“Patty played sound, he played really well,” said Sutter. “He was poised and he was seeing the puck tonight. His positional play inside the crease was very good.”
Friday’s game marked the Rebels debut of defenceman Nick Charif, who left the Victoria Grizzlies of the BCHL Wednesday to join the club, and forward Evan Polei, acquired from the Saskatoon Blades in a Thursday deal. Sutter was impressed with Charif.
“I thought he played very well. He’s poised, he moves the puck and makes smart plays,” said Sutter. “He loves to have the puck on his stick. He’s a heady player who makes good stick-to-stick passes. That’s what we knew were getting with him — a guy who knows how to play the game.”
As for the six-foot-one, 225-pound Polei . . .
“He’s a young man, 17 years of age, but there’s a lot there to work with, not just as a player but the type of role we want him to play,” said Sutter. “He’s a big body and we have things to work on with him. We have to get him into better shape. He has to be a better conditioned athlete to play major junior and he needs some work there.
“We’ll work on that but in the meantime he has to push himself too. He had shifts tonight that were good, he has just has to learn parts of the game and our job as coaches is to make sure we teach him the right way.”
• The Rebels host the Spokane Chiefs tonight at 7 p.m. Spokane fell 4-1 to the Oil Kings Friday at Edmonton . . . Red Deer rookie forward Vukie Mpofu left the game in the third period after being taken into the boards by the Raiders’ Mackenzie Stewart, and didn’t return. Stewart, who was assessed a major and game misconduct for charging, then engaged Kayle Doetzel, who picked up an instigating minor, in a spirited fight.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com