Rebels 5 Broncos 1
SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. — Finally someone other than Darcy Kuemper collected a win for the Red Deer Rebels.
Dawson Guhle had a relatively easy night in picking up his first victory in a Rebels’ sweater, beating the Swift Current Broncos 5-1 on Sunday in Western Hockey League action.
“He didn’t have a win yet, but it wasn’t because he played poorly, he’s had a couple of solid games for us . . . so it’s not like we haven’t had confidence playing in front of him. More than anything I’m sure it just feels good for him to get that one off his chest,” said Rebels head coach Jesse Wallin. “We know what he’s capable of and we feel he’s a promising goaltender who we think is only going to get better. The fact of the matter is Kuemps is the top goaltender in the league, is 20 years old and is going to play the majority of the games.”
Guhle had a ‘W’ on his record from earlier this season, but that was when he tended nets for the Regina Pats. Since being acquired by the Rebels on Nov. 15 for Lane Scheidl he had a record of 0-2-0-2 with a goals against average of 2.82 and a save percentage of 0.880.
Kuemper, meanwhile has been busy re-writing the Rebels’ record book, posting a record of 28-8-1-2 with a 1.80 G.A.A, a 0.933 save percentage and eight shutouts.
“He was solid when he had to be. He wasn’t tested much but sometimes that can be even more challenging than facing a number of shots,” said Wallin. “I thought he handled himself really well. They made a push coming out hard early in third period . . . and he had to make a few saves in that sequence and those are key saves not to allow them to get any life.”
The Rebels played solid in front of Guhle, allowing just 24 shots in the contest — 12 of which came in the final period.
“Our forecheck was good, I thought we controlled the puck well in the offensive zone,” said Wallin. “We generated a lot of opportunities off our rush using our speed and when the puck was turned over and they were coming at us I thought our defence did a real good job of standing up at the blue-line with real good gap control, and our forwards did a good job of coming back. We didn’t allow them to get anything going.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins opened the scoring for Red Deer with his 13th goal of the season from Colten Mayor at 16:39 of the first period. Byron Froese made it 2-0 3:49 into the middle frame with his 20th goal of the season from Brett Ferguson and Colin Archer and then Ferguson stretched the lead to three goals with 28 seconds left in the second with his 12 goal of the campaign.
Turner Elson with his 11th — from Justin Weller — and John Persson with his 17th — from Andrej Kudrna — put the game out of reach in the third period.
The only question left was whether or not Guhle could preserve the goose egg, but Justin Dowling broke it up at 16:31 of final stanza.
Mark Friesen made 23 saves in the loss for Swift Current.
“I thought it was a real, real solid hockey game,” said Wallin. “Throughout this trip I thought we played some real solid hockey. We had a good start again, didn’t score early but I thought we established the play. The first goal is always a big goal and we managed to get that first goal to get us going and put us in good position, especially on the road.“
The win puts the Rebels on a five game winning streak — all on the road — as they swept their four games in Saskatchewan.
Despite being their third game in three nights, it was one of their most complete games of the trip as they finished strong.
“That’s where your leadership and experience comes through and we feel we’ve got that now,“ said Wallin, who’s team had won 6-0 Saturday in Regina and 2-1 in a shootout in Brandon on Friday. “With the game in Regina we were able to roll four lines so no one was over played and we were able to keep everyone fresh and I thought that showed in our game tonight.”
Nugent-Hopkins had a goal and two assists to lead the Rebels on Saturday while Froese chipped in with two markers. John Persson, Kudrna, and Matthew Dumba all added singles and Kuemper made 24 saves for the shutout win.
The Rebels have one more contest on the road before their exile from the Centrium ends. They will be in Medicine Hat (28-13-2-0) on Friday at 7:30 p.m. looking to go a perfect 6-0 on this stretch away from their home rink.
Their next home game is on Saturday when they host the Moose Jaw Warriors at 7:30 p.m.
“The guys came out here with a purpose. We had an opportunity to gain some ground on teams in our division,” said Wallin. “End of the day our approach has been one game at a time . . . and I thought we did a real good job of focusing on our next opponent and taking care of business as best we could.”
Notes — The game had an early first intermission when a pane of glass was broken by a shot in the Broncos’ end and a replacement could not be found. Eventually an old sign was cut to fit the slot and the final 5:51 of the first period were played after the break . . . The Rebels went 0-for-three on the power play and the Broncos went 0-for-four . . . Nugent-Hopkins will not be joining the Rebels for the ride home. He instead is flying to Toronto for the CHL prospects game in Toronto. The skills competition is on Tuesday with the actual game on Wednesday at 5 p.m. . . .The announced attendance in Swift Current was 1,787.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com