The Red Deer Rebels were hard at work during the weekend, not only attempting to erase the memories of Friday’s humbling 9-2 loss at Medicine Hat, but also working towards a solution ensuring that they are not embarrassed again any time soon.
“We worked on a lot of our systems stuff. We had a lot of breakdowns Friday at Medicine Hat, which was kind of uncharacteristic for us,” Rebels assistant coach Dallas Gaume said Sunday evening. “We had many breakdowns, right from our D-zone coverage to our neutral-zone play. There were lots of things we had to walk through Saturday and today.”
Gaume, like the other members of the Rebels coaching staff, was totally baffled as to how badly the team was owned by the Tigers.
“It was a whole team thing, from our goalies out to our forwards. No one was sharp or alert . . . no one had their legs going,” said Gaume. “It was a total team effort the wrong way.”
The Rebels long-time assistant admitted the brutal performance came out of nowhere.
“That was out of the ordinary for us. It was just one of those nights where we had very few good players. We had nothing going at all and it was a tough night all around,” he said. “The bottom line is we had a lot of things to work on after that game.”
The Rebels, fortunately for them, don’t have to wait long to flex their muscles following their rigid weekend workouts, with the struggling Seattle Thunderbirds slated to visit the Centrium on Tuesday night. Game time is 7 p.m.
“Today we did a lot of battling in practice, a bunch of one-on-one, two-on-two, five-on-five drills and a lot of defensive zone stuff,” said Gaume. “We have to get our compete level up again and with our next four games at home we have to get moving. We fought our way back to .500 and now we’ve slipped back again (to a 6-8 record). We have to get our game going again, starting Tuesday night.”
Injured players Landon Ferraro and Alex Petrovic skated during the weekend, but neither will play on Tuesday.
The Rebels coaches are hopeful that Ferraro, sidelined with a knee problem, will be available for Friday and Saturday games versus Medicine Hat and the Everett Silvertips. Petrovic is out another two weeks with a high ankle sprain.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com