Tigers 5 Rebels 2
MEDICINE HAT — Team Canada’s loss was the Medicine Hat Tigers’ gain.
And yet another headache for the Red Deer Rebels.
Goaltender Tyler Bunz was a late cut of the Canadian national junior team Wednesday morning, then returned to the Tigers and was named first star of the game with a 33-save effort in a 5-2 Western Hockey League win over the Red Deer Rebels just hours later.
“He always seems to be a big part of it whenever we play the Tigers,” said Rebels assistant coach Bryce Thoma.
“They also play a very patient game. They wait for you to make mistakes and then capitalize on them. That’s always been the way when we play Medicine Hat.”
The Rebels also had the benefit of having a last-minute national team deletion in their lineup in the person of defenceman Alex Petrovic.
“But even with Alex back we didn’t have a lot of guys play to their potential tonight,” said Thoma.
The Tigers led 1-0 after 20 minutes on a goal by Cole Grbavac and then got unanswered second-period markers from Jayden Hart (power play) and Emersen Etem, who will join Team USA Saturday for the world junior championship.
Rebels second-year forward Tyson Ness cut the deficit to two goals with a short-handed tally just 56 seconds into the third period and the visitors were staring at an excellent chance to pull within one with a power play shortly after.
“We had three glorious chances to score but couldn’t get the puck by Bunz, then they came back with a power-play goal of their own (by Hunter Shinkaruk at 5:53) and it kind of snowballed from there,” said Thoma.
“Like I said, they’re a patient team that waits for the other team to make mistakes.”
Tigers rearguard James Bettauer upped the count to 5-1 just past the midway point of the third period and Rebels winger John Persson closed out the scoring with six minutes remaining in the game.
Rebels netminder Deven Dubyk made 29 saves against his former team.
The Rebels close out the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule Saturday at the Centrium against the Regina Pats.
“It’s the proverbial four-point game for us,” said Thoma. “Regina is a team we’re going to have to beat to get back into the playoff race and out of the slump that we’re in.”
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com