Trevor Crawley

Ice repel Americans with 5-2 win

The race is on.

The Kootenay Ice snapped a three game losing streak with a 5-2 win over the Tri-City Americans on Saturday night at Western Financial Place.

The victory put them ahead in the standings only briefly as the Red Deer Rebels won their match-up with the Victoria Royals, leaving the two teams tied in points.

Both the Ice and the Rebels are locked in a dogfight for third place in the Central Division and will be duking it out for the rest of the season for the final divisional playoff spot.

Peyton Krebs and Brett Davis led the way with a goal and an assist apiece, while offence was also provided by Gilian Kohler, Cameron Hausinger and Kaeden Taphorn.

Tri-City responded with a pair of goals from Morgan Geekie.

Duncan McGovern made 19 saves on the night, while Americans netminder turned away 32 shots.

While the score ended at 5-2, Ice head coach James Patrick noted it was far from a decisive game.

“I know we out-shot them by a wide margin and out-chanced them, but they have so much skill, they’re scary watching from the bench because they can turn on a dime and they’re such a good transition team,” Patrick said.

“For us, I just thought [it] challenged a few players to be as good defensively as possible when you’re playing against guys like Rasmussen and Valimaki, so I just thought our compete level from top to bottom was as good as we’ve had.”

“I think it was the best game we’ve played all year.”

Patrick referenced the Americans’ skill, which included players selected in the first round of the NHL Draft, such as D Juuso Valimaki (Calgary Flames), F Michael Rasmussen (Detroit Red Wings), and D Jake Bean (Carolina Hurricanes). Geekie, who tallied both goals for Tri-City, is a third rounder from the Hurricanes as well.

While that skill was on display throughout the night, Hausinger scored the go-ahead and game winning goal midway through the second period, while Krebs and Davis added insurance to pick up the win.

Geekie kicked off the scoring for the night early in the first period, picking up a loose puck in Kootenay territory and beating McGovern on the game’s first shot.

However, instead of folding, the Ice went to work and were rewarded late in the period when Krebs made an eye-popping move to beat the defenceman and fed a cross-ice pass to Kohler, who redirected the puck into the net.

Krebs, who had recently spent some time up on the wing along with Colton Kroeker, dropped down to the third line, centering Kohler and Veloso.

“Peyton is so important. He’s a playmaker. He makes things happen,” said Patrick. “The last month, he’s played on Kroeker’s line for a bit and they’ve had some great chemistry, him, Kroeker and [Colton] Veloso, but we just felt after the last game, I think the Saskatoon game, we just had to balance out our lines a bit.”

Tied up at 1-1 heading into the second period, Kaeden Taphorn broke the deadlock off a rebound for his fifth goal of the season just under seven minutes into the frame.

A few minutes later, Geekie evened up the affair on a bizarre goal that came from an errant puck from the sidewall that redirected through McGovern’s legs.

However, just after the period halfway mark, Kootenay’s first powerplay went to work and Hausinger scored what turned out to be the eventual game-winner, one-timing a backdoor pass.

Early in the third period, Krebs as the lucky recipient of a deflection off a hard pass from Veloso to puck up his 16th marker of the season for some insurance.

The Americans blue line used to have Krebs’ older brother, Dakota, however, he was traded to the Calgary Hitmen in the Jake Bean deal before the trade deadline.

Because of that connection, the younger Krebs had some extra jump in his game.

“I think we all just bought into the system, I think that was crucial tonight,” said Krebs. “It was a great team effort, I think all four lines were going, we played our system well and we got the bounces we wanted and pucks in the net and we got the W.”

With just over three minutes left in the contest, Davis iced the game, sniping the corner on an odd-man rush into the zone.

The result helped boost the confidence of a team that had let some games recently slip through their fingers in the final minutes.

“Prince Albert, we lost some points there, Lethbridge, Saskatoon, so obviously it can really hit the guys hard and bring a lack of confidence about them when it just seems that everything you do just can’t go right,” said Patrick, “so we needed the result real bad but we’ve been talking this last week about focusing on the process and the results will come and I think that happened tonight.”

The win was earned in front of Ice co-owner Greg Fettes, who was in Cranbrook to present a $25,000 cheque to the Canadian Mental Health Association — Kootenays in a pre-game ceremony.

Ice Chips: Connor McClennon, Kootenay’s second overall selection from the 2017 WHL Draft, remains with the team, but remained out of the lineup.