Rebels 5 Ice 4 (SO)
On some nights in the WHL, you take your two points and move on.
The Red Deer Rebels won a vitally important contest over the Kootenay Ice at the Centrium Friday, but it wasn’t the way they drew it up.
Red Deer crawled to a 5-4 shootout victory over the Ice and GM/head coach Brent Sutter said they’ll need a noticeably better effort if they home to compete in the playoffs.
“We never really played all that well here tonight. In the first two periods we had a lot of turnovers, we were second on pucks and weren’t great in our own zone,” Sutter said.
“Our neutral zone play tonight, we had a lot of turnovers. We’re fortunate enough to get a win and two points. We’ll take it. It wasn’t one of our better games in the last month.”
With the win, the Rebels are now seven points up on the Ice for third in the Central Division and have a game in hand.
Rebels netminder Riley Lamb stopped all three Kootenay shooters in the shootout and Mason McCarty scored the winner for Red Deer bar down past Matt Berlin.
The Rebels had three separate leads in the game but still needed extra time to get the two points, including a 3-1 advantage in the second period after Reese Johnson sniped his 21st goal of the year.
Rebels rookie forward Alex Morozoff opened the scoring in the first when he poked a rebound in during a scramble in front of Berlin. Since joining Red Deer on Jan. 5, the 16-year-old Saskatoon, Sask., product has six goals in 23 games.
Colton Kroeker tied the game at one in the first after Hunter Donohoe misplayed a puck deep in the Rebels end. Kroeker slid a backhand just past the outstretched pad of Riley Lamb.
Red Deer regained the lead early in the second after Mason McCarty blasted home his team leading 35th goal of the year. The 20-year-old winger picked up a loose puck just inside the hash mark and buried the shot high blocker on Berlin.
Kootenay scored to make it 3-2 shortly after the Johnson tally in the second.
Late in the third period, after some relentless pressure, Kootenay finally tied the game at three with 4:31 to play. Johnathan Smart hit Colton Veloso with a cross-crease pass for the goal.
On just their second shot of the final frame, Chris Douglas scored in his third straight contest when he buried a great pass from Hagel to put the Rebels ahead again.
Kootenay then pulled their goalie with 1:09 to play and a faceoff in the Rebels end. Cam Hausinger won the draw back to Brett Davis who fired a slapshot in to tie the game at four with only 58 seconds left in regulation.
Through 60 minutes the Rebels had just 14 shots. They scored on one of only two shots in the third and were not able to generate much zone time in the final frame beyond that.
“It was a must win for (Kootenay) and they came out hard. Obviously we didn’t respond the right way in the first two periods. We battled a bit in the third– it’s a win,” said Hagel, who had two assists in the win.
Red Deer will be on the road Saturday night to take on the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
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