Giants 5
Rebels 2
The Red Deer Rebels went down early and were unable to recover in a 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Giants on Tuesday night.
The Giants made the trip to Red Deer for the first time in two years and handed the Rebels their first regulation loss of the season.
The Giants scored three powerplay goals in the first period to end the Rebels four game winning streak. From there, it was tough for the Rebels to get back into the game.
"I don't think it was tough I think we thought it was going to be easy," said head coach Dave Struch after the game.
"We came out in the first period and obviously we were really flat. I think it's something we can learn from. It was bound to happen, you don't really want it to happen this way, but it is something that you can look back on and I think we shot ourselves in the foot right off the hop."
The Giants struck first just under eight minutes into the game on the powerplay when a point shot from defenceman Mazden Leslie redirected off a defender and past netminder Chase Wutzke.
Later in the opening period, Giants Ty Halaburda fired in their second powerplay goal of the night off a one-timer in the slot assisted by Leslie.
With nine seconds left in the period, the Giants' leading scorer Cameron Schmidt put the Giants up 3-0 on the powerplay heading into the intermission.
The Giants finished three for three on the powerplay and the Rebels went scoreless on four opportunities.
"The penalty kill wasn't very good. A couple of bounces didn't go our way but still, we have a better group to kill penalties like we did tonight," Struch added.
"On our powerplay we had lots of opportunities but that's not what lost us the game tonight. It was a flat group of guys. They found a way to get better as the game went on but when you came out the way we did it was going to be hard to come back."
In the second period, the Rebels came out swinging and found their first of the game two minutes into the frame. Rookie forward Cohen Poulin, after the goalie saved his first shot, immediately reloaded and beat the goaltender in the top corner.
However, at the 6:15 mark, the Giants restored their three-goal lead scored by Aaron Obobaifo after the Rebels struggled to get the puck out of their own zone.
Just under two minutes later, forward Jakob Orekovic made it 5-1 with a shot from the slot but Rebels defenceman Hunter Mayo cut into the lead with a laser from the point that beat the goalie later on.
Rebels goaltender Chase Wutzke made 23 saves on 28 shots and Giants Matthew Hutchinson made 32 saves on 34 shots.
Red Deer won't have much time to dwell on the loss as they head to Medicine Hat on Wednesday to face the Tigers at Co-op Place.
"We're going to be going there and they're going to look for a challenge for sure."
