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Red Deer Chiefs make it to elimination round

It didn’t come as a result of a victory, but the Red Deer Chiefs have punched their ticket into the elimination round at the 2013 Telus Cup.

SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — It didn’t come as a result of a victory, but the Red Deer Chiefs have punched their ticket into the elimination round at the 2013 Telus Cup.

Following a lop-sided victory against the Valley Wildcats on Thursday, the Chiefs battled to a 2-2 tie on Friday morning against the Ottawa Jr. 67’s.

The story of the game was the play of Ottawa goaltender Simon Hofley, who turned away 55 shots.

The Chiefs had multiple opportunities to score throughout the game on a number of power plays, but the Ottawa netminder had an answer for most shots fired at him.

“I thought (Hofley) was outstanding,” Chiefs head coach Doug Quinn. “He’s a big, strong guy that covers a lot of net. It just looked like when we were shooting, there wasn’t much net to look at.”

Ottawa opened the scoring three and a half minutes into the first period when Matthew Hudson found a loose puck in front and beat Chiefs goaltender Matt Zentner.

Red Deer tied the game later in the period as Chris Gorgi grabbed a rebound off Hofley’s pad.

The Chiefs took the lead early in the second period when Trey Degraaf scored on the power play to make it 2-1.

Chiefs defenceman Jordan Steenbergen left the game with an upper body injury after taking a hard hit into the Red Deer bench early in the third period.

On an ensuing Ottawa power play, Ryan Kuffner tied the game for at two after deflecting a point shot with 15 minutes remaining in the third period.

The teams traded scoring chances in the remaining minutes, but neither goaltender could be beat.

Gabe Bast was named player of the game for Red Deer.

Red Deer goaltender Matt Zentner was also strong in net, as he turned away 25 shots.

Chiefs captain Quinn Brown said his team would have rather walked away with the victory, but said the team is happy with the single point and the berth into the semifinals.

“We wanted the win, but the tie was good because it got us into the semis,” Brown said. “We didn’t play our best, we still have more so hopefully we can bring that out in the semis.”

Brown said the team’s game plan remained the same as it has all tournament.

“Our game plan was the same: just wear teams out, get pucks deep and wear them out so we can score goals,” he said.

Quinn was pleased with his team’s effort and said as the game went on, his players generated more scoring chances.

“I thought we worked hard,” Quinn said. “We might have been a little bit tight, but the first ten minutes of the game I thought we came out with a lot of intensity and pressure. I thought gradually we started skating better and created a lot of opportunities.”

Heading into the elimination round, Quinn spoke about the components of the Chiefs’ game that needs to be sharper.

“We’re still making a few too many mistakes and too many turnovers,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of opportunities to score, but we just need to bear down around the net. The quality of goaltending we’ve seen this week has been exceptional, and we’re just going to have to bury our opportunities when we get the chance.”

Ottawa head coach Travis Crickard knew, heading into Friday morning’s game against the Chiefs, his team needed to obtain either a tie or a win to have a chance at advancing in the tournament.

“This was an elimination game for us,” Crickard said. “If we didn’t get a tie or a win, we knew we were going to be out. Going into the third period, there were a few soap-box speeches made by some of the players to try and do anything we could to get a goal to at least get a tie.”

The Chiefs conclude the round robin portion of the tournament with a 2-1-2 record, and will play in Saturday’s semifinal for an opportunity to play in their second consecutive gold medal game.

— By JERRET SEMCZYSZYN - Special to The Advocate