The beginning of the Red Deer Rebels’ four-game road trip got off to a rocky start Tuesday night.
Red Deer’s first stop in Prince Albert, Sask. against the Raiders was anything but ideal as the Rebels lost 5-2 at the Art Hauser Centre.
According to Red Deer Rebels head coach Steve Konowalchuk, his team wasn’t prepared to go to battle physically or mentally.
“We weren’t ready to start… We just came off I think one of our best all-around games and then followed up with this,” he said.
“I’m really surprised I don’t understand why. We were not ready in that first period because usually when we’ve come off a really good game like that it carries right through but certainly wasn’t the case here today.”
Indeed it was a slow start for the Rebels who went down 3-0 after the first period. Froward Niall Crocker potted the first two goals for the Raiders and Landon Kosier scored with nine seconds left in the opening frame to take a commanding lead into the second period.
The Rebels got a much-needed tally five minutes into the middle frame off the stick of Jace Isley who sniped his 27th of the year.
Prince Albert answered just over 10 minutes later to extend their lead 4-1 notched by Keaton Sorensen.
In the dying seconds of the second Red Deer’s Jhett Larson scored on the powerplay to bring Red Deer within two.
Raiders Sloan Stanick added one more in the third period to seal the deal for Prince Albert.
Goaltender Kyle Kelsey made 18 saves on 23 shots and the Raiders Max Hildebrand had 19 stops.
Red Deer also got into penalty trouble once again giving Prince Albert six powerplay opportunities. The Raiders converted twice on the man advantage.
Konowalchuk reiterated the penalties were a byproduct of not playing sharp on the ice.
“That’s all part of not being ready to play and you take penalties because we were on the wrong side of body position,” he said.
Next for the Rebels is a matchup with the Saskatoon Blades on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre. The third-place Blades are right on the second-place Rebels’ tail in the Eastern Conference standings.
After that, they’ll head to Brandon on Friday and Regina on Saturday before returning home.
“We would have liked to get that first game but we can’t now. We’ve got to move on and make sure we’re ready for tomorrow.”
