Blades 2 Rebels 1
Two of the better Western Hockey League teams clashed Saturday night at the Centrium and the end result — not surprisingly — came down to a single goal.
Unfortunately for the Red Deer Rebels, they came out on the short end of a 2-1 count versus the Saskatoon Blades before a recorded gathering of 5,835.
“It’s always a good game between these two teams and it has been for the last few years,” said Rebels captain Adam Kambeitz. “That’s what we expect when we play Saskatoon. It was a battle and they came out on top.”
Blades assistant coach David Struch concurred.
“A high-intensity game is something we expect every time we play the Rebels,” said Struch. “It’s always going to be like a playoff game.”
The clubs went all out through a scoreless opening period and then combined to score all three goals in the second stanza.
Colten Mayor opened the scoring just over two minutes into the period, moving to the front of the net, stepping around Blades netminder Andrey Makarov and burying a rebound of a shot by linemate Josh Cowen.
Defenceman Dalton Thrower notched a power-play goal 12 minutes later, beating Rebels goaltender Patrik Bartosak from the top of the right faceoff circle, and Lukas Sutter whipped a high shot past Bartosak at 18:31 following a series of sloppy Red Deer defensive plays.
“It was a hard-fought battle between two good hockey teams. There was certainly an intensity to the game with a great crowd in here and it was a battle from start to finish,” said Rebels GM/head coach Jesse Wallin.
“I thought the difference in the game was they capitalized on a couple of our mistakes. We had a couple of unnecessary turnovers on the winning goal late in the second period. At that point in the game you have to make the simple play and get the puck out of the zone.”
Both goaltenders were superb, with first star Makarov coming up with 43 saves — including 19 in the final frame — and second star Bartosak stopping 37 shots.
“We had chances in the third period, we had a number of opportunities on the power play (including a 91-second two-man advantage) but their goaltender stood tall,” said Wallin.
“It was a hard-fought game and unfortunately we came out on the wrong end.” While Makarov was sharp, Bartosak came up with the bigger saves, including a stop on a labeled one-timer by Matej Stransky in the second period and a goalmouth block on Jake Trask in the final 20 minutes.
“We’ve coming to expect that from Patrik,” said Kambeitz. “He’s been incredible for us back there this season. You can’t blame him for anything. He’s battled hard all year.”
While the Rebels suffered their third straight loss, it was their first regulation-time setback since falling 3-2 to the Kootenay Ice Oct. 26 at Cranbrook.
Saturday’s effort was, as Kambeitz noted, superior to Friday’s output when the Rebels dropped a 5-4 shootout decision to the host Lethbridge Hurricanes.
“We came out better tonight, but then we waited until the third period to turn it on,” said Kambeitz, who recorded a hat trick at Lethbridge as the Rebels rebounded from a 3-0 deficit with a trio of late goals.
“It didn’t work out for us tonight to get at least the single point,” added the Rebels captain.
Notes — Rebels defenceman Aaron Borejko sat out Friday and Saturday and is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury . . . Wallin was assessed a game misconduct from referee Colin Watt in the final minute of the game when the Rebels bench boss loudly expressed his rage over an obvious missed tripping call as a Red Deer defenceman was carrying the puck out of the zone . . . Rebels forward Joel Hamilton is three weeks from returning from a lower-body injury, while defenceman Cody Thiel was a healthy scratch Saturday . . . The Rebels are idle until Friday when they host the Hurricanes.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com