Rebels 5 Bobcats 2
The Red Deer Optimist Rebels have the talent to play with anyone in the Alberta Midget Hockey League.
But it was their ability to play as a 20-man unit that led them to the league championship and a berth in the Alberta-B.C. final.
The Rebels put the cap on their impressive championship run, which saw them win nine of 10 starts, with a 5-2 victory over the Lloydminster Bobcats before an estimated crowd of 800 at the Arena Friday.
The Red Deer squad won the best-of-five series 3-1, with the only loss a 7-2 setback Wednesday in Lloydminster.
“That loss put everything back in perspective for us, it was a reality check we needed,” said Rebels head coach Doug Quinn.
“We got away from the team game. When we do that we’re very average. But when we play with intensity and with a strong work ethic we have a lot of balance and we’re hard to play against.”
That was the case Friday, except for a time in the second period, when they sat back, ran into a string of penalties and the Bobcats started to steal some of the momentum.
“We had total control of the game, then kind of started shooting ourselves in the foot with a number of bad penalties in that second period,” added Quinn. “They started getting some momentum with a power play goal (at 12:56) and right on the heels of that they scored again (32 seconds later). With that we said OK let’s calm down.”
The Rebels did just that, although Justin Faux was called for another penalty at 17:41, which turned out to be the main turning point in the game.
Not only did the Rebels turn in a solid penalty kill, but Clayton Petrie laid a perfect pass into the high slot to Jared Guilbault, who one-timed a blast high over the glove of Lloydminster backup goalie Connor Creech, for a shorthanded goal and a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes.
“That was huge for us,” said Quinn. “It was a great play by Clayton, who was outstanding. When Jared scored you could see the life go out of them.”
Rebels captain Kirsten Odendaal felt the team wouldn’t fold when the Bobcats did gain some momentum.
“That’s one of the strengths of our team,” he said.
“We just play our game and our style and keep working. And that shorthanded goal was huge.”
Troy Klaus put the finishing touches on the victory, when he stole the puck, cut in off the right side and slipped the puck under Creech at 10:14 of the third period.
“Troy plays a lot defence for me, but when we move him up front it’s a seamless transition and when he scored we knew they were done.”
The Rebels, who outshot the Bobcats 14-3 in the first period, limited the ‘Cats to five shots in the third period.
“We made sure our defence wasn’t pinching and we had a third man high,” said Quinn.
Petrie and Brett Printz tallied for the Rebels in the first period and Collin Valcourt tipped in a Odendaal shot from the blueline at 2:54 of the second period to bring an end to the evening for Bobcats starting netminder Tyler Briggs, who was being outshot 19-4 at the time.
Odendaal felt confident heading into the game, although a loss would have sent the series back to Lloydminster.
“The loss Wednesday was good for us and got us refocused and we were ready for this game,” he said. “There wasn’t any extra pressure. If we would have loss then there may have been.”
The fact the Rebels stormed through the league and playoffs was even more impressive in that only Nathan Dennis and Faux returned from last year.
“When I first saw the talent we had in camp I felt confident as we had a lot of talent and great coaching,” said Odendaal.
Quinn wasn’t worried about the lack of experience.
“We had a lot of quality kids and lot of them had success coming up from the 15-year-old program,” he said. “They were dedicated and hard-working.”
The Rebels showed early in the season they’d be competitive, then started putting everything together at the Mac’s Christmas tournament.
“We had a good run at the Mac’s, then after Christmas we got better and better and once the playoffs hit we seemed to peak at the right time,” explained Quinn. “If you look at the playoffs there were eight of the games where we gave up two goals or less. We had good team defence, good goaltending and a solid team effort.”
The Rebels will face the Vancouver Northwest Giants, who won the Mac’s tournament, in the best-of-three Alberta-B.C. final, April 2-4 at the Arena.
“They won the Mac’s which is not easy to do . . . they’re a highly skilled team with good goaltending,” said Quinn. “We’ll need to play a strong couple of games to beat them.”
• Ty Carey and Braden Crone scored for the Bobcats . . . The Rebels had 27 shots on goal while Mac Engel stopped 19 shots in the Red Deer net.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com