It was deja-vu Friday night as the Red Deer Rebels (20-26-10-3) on their second visit of the season to the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre defeated the Victoria Royals (34-21-3-2). Echoing their previous visit in November, the Rebels came into Victoria on a stormy west coast night and pulled out a late third period victory. Similar to their first trip to Victoria where the Rebels showed endless work ethic and scored two goals in less than three minutes to escape with a 5-3 win, Friday’s action saw the Alberta team never quit and get rewarded with a late goal to win the game 4-3.
Red Deer came to the island on a hot streak, winning 7 of their last 10 games, including a big win in Kelowna this past Wednesday. The Royals were set back by the Edmonton Oil Kings in their last game, a 7-6 Valentine’s Day shootout that did not go the way the team expected. Riley Lamb, who was named WHL Goaltender of the Week earlier this month, started in net for the Rebels. Lamb has been fantastic on this road trip through BC, only allowing one goal against in two games, picked up wins versus Prince George and Kelowna. Dean McNabb got the start for Victoria, as Griffen Outhouse sat out for his second straight game with an undisclosed injury.
Royals dominated early in the game, primarily due to an early powerplay, and the Rebels failed to record a shot on McNabb in the first seven minutes. The game’s first goal came at 14:14 as sniper Matthew Phillips scored his 44th of the season. Phillips fired a wrist shot past Lamb’s blocker-side as he was falling to his knees for a pretty goal.
The Rebels tied it up, scoring on a 4-on-3 power play as Kristian Reichel wired an absolute bullet from the point past McNabb at 18:43. First period shots were 13-6 in favour of Victoria.
Red Deer had momentum in the second period and forced McNabb to be sharp in net for the Royals, making some big saves off Brandon Hagel and Mason McCarty. Just as a powerplay ended for Red Deer, McCarty took a pass in the high slot and scored to make it 2-1 at 9:56. Under two minutes later, Brandon Cutler showed nice speed for a partial break past the Victoria defenders and out-waited McNabb to tuck home a goal at 11:30. The Rebels continued the strong play and held the momentum for most of the middle frame. With just 7.6 seconds left in the period, Royals rugged defenceman Kade Jensen got a lucky goal as he flipped the puck from behind the Red Deer goal and it deflected into the net off a Rebel player. The score was 3-2 for the Rebels at the end of the second.
The third period saw Victoria regain the momentum and push to tie the game. At 5:16 they were successful as Lane Zablocki scored a powerplay goal against his former team to make it 3-3. Zablocki commented on facing his former team, “(Coach)Sutter drives it into his players that you’re going to work hard, the full 60 minutes, compete and play physical all night. Coming into the game, I think we all knew that was the type of game we were going to expect and that we would have to out-work them if we wanted to come out with the win.” True to their coach’s creed, the Rebels continued to work hard and were rewarded by a goal from Chris Douglas at 12:41. Douglas’ goal came off a deflection from a shot from Colin Paradis and proved to be the game-winner. The Rebels work ethic proved to be key in their victory as Kade Jensen said ““The big key for us tonight was to match their work ethic. With their coach, he knows how to get their guys going and we kind of fell back there a little bit a couple of times.”
The Rebels seem to have found their footing as the push for they playoffs. After a stretch of 13 consecutive losses, Red Deer is 8-1-1-0 in its last 10 games, including going 3-0 versus the BC teams on this road trip. They look to make it four in a row Sunday as the face the Vancouver Giants in Langley. The Royals are in a funk, now with three consecutive losses after surging to return to the top of the BC Division. They also face the Giants next, at home Saturday with puck drop at 7:05pm at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.
Royal Subjects
- Still Streaking- Matthew Phillips goal to open the scoring Friday night continued his points streak, now at 20 games. He has 37 points in that span.
- On the Shelf- Griffen Outhouse, Ralph Jarratt, Jeff De Wit, D Jay Jerome and Chaz Reddekopp were all unable to play Friday night
