Raiders 7 Rebels 4
Heading into the final weekend of the Alberta Midget Hockey League schedule the Red Deer Optimist Rebels were coasting along on a 12-game winning streak and appeared ready for the playoffs.
But things change quickly.
The Rebels saw their win streak come to an end with a 4-1 loss to the visiting Sherwood Park Kings Friday then blew a 4-1 lead to lose 7-4 to the St. Albert Raiders Sunday afternoon at the Arena.
“It was a disappointing weekend as we got away from some of the things we were doing,” said Rebels head coach Doug Quinn.
“We had a lot of success, winning 12 in a row, but we let Sherwood Park take us out of our game on Friday as we got behind early and didn’t respond well. Then today we were playing well, up 4-1 midway through the game, but all of a sudden once they got their second goal panic seemed to set in. We started taking silly penalties and before we knew it the game was tied.”
The Rebels came out stronger in the final period, but a defensive mistake allowed Carson Samoridny to notch his second goal of the game and the Rebels were never able to recover.
“We started panicking and played terrible defence,” said Quinn. “There was bad goaltending and the defence started throwing the puck away.”
The Raiders grabbed a 6-4 lead as Red Deer netminder Tanner Jaillet pushed the puck into his own net, although the goal shouldn’t have counted as the whistle had definitely gone before the puck was in.
“We could see that clearly on our side of the ice, but that really wasn’t the reason we lost,” added Quinn, who hopes this weekend was simply a bump on the road.
“We had a long stretch where we picked up 36 of a possible 42 points and were really playing well. Hopefully this adversity was what we’ve been talking about in that you grow from adversity.”
The Rebels finished in a first-place tie in the South Division with the Calgary Flames, but held a head-to-head advantage over their Calgary rivals and so took top spot in the division, and the league, and received a bye in the opening round of the playoffs.
“We earned ourselves top spot and now we have two weeks to regroup, get some quality practice time in and when the playoffs start refocus. This weekend we played like a fragile team and we need to get past that.”
The Rebels were also playing a bit shorthanded because of injuries and sickness.
“That made a slight difference as the guys did wear out toward the end,” said Quinn.
Dallen Hall, Landon Heibert, Joel Topping and Conner Hartley scored for the Rebels while Jaillet made 27 saves. The Rebels had 36 shots on the Raiders Wyatt Hoflin.
Samoridny had two goals for the Raiders with Jayden Hart, Brett Kulak, Kaiden Tobin, Joel Harden and Tyler Rebkowich adding one each.
l The Raiders finished second in the north back of the Edmonton Athletics . . . Rebels will face the winner of the Calgary Royals and Calgary Buffaloes series.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com