While you forage grocery stores for discounted, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, the Blazers could be searching for ice packs. Such is life when Brent Sutter and his Red Deer Rebels make a rare stop at the Sandman Centre. Blazers’ head coach Shaun Clouston — who spent over 15 years in Alberta with the Medicine Hat Tigers — knows the feeling all too well.
“His teams always work really hard, they’re a young team and they battled hard tonight, that’s a trademark of Brent’s for sure.”
Sutter coached the 1000th game of his junior career on Wednesday night against Vancouver, he’s one of only nine WHL coaches to achieve the milestone. Despite selling at the trade deadline and icing one of the league’s youngest rosters, the Rebels’ work ethic was on full display in a 5-3 loss to the Blazers.
Kamloops — eager to snap a season-high five-game losing skid in front of family from far and wide — jumped out to an early 1-0 lead with Orrin Centazzo’s 37th goal of the season. Minutes later, Quinn Schmiemann fired the puck towards the empty net but found iron. Ryan Hughes, with an empty-net of his own, had his shot blocked on a great defensive play by Christoffer Sedoff.
The Blazers owned the first 10 minutes of the game but that meant precious little heading into the intermission. Cam Hausinger scored a powerplay goal with 11 seconds remaining on the man-advantage. 18 seconds later, Arshdeep Bains scored his 17th of the season to silence the home crowd.
“I thought after the first goal, we looked deflated,” added Clouston. “I guess the next one came pretty fast. Our game was completely different after that so it was just a reset, it was — don’t play the score, don’t play the period, don’t play the opponent, just play our game.”
That meant simplifying the approach and getting pucks on the net. Brodi Stuart drove the net and banged home a rebound for his seventh goal of the season. 73 seconds later, it was Centazzo’s turn again. After Logan Stankoven’s shot hit the post, Centazzo potted his second of the game and 38th of the season to give the Blazers a 3-2 lead.
Red Deer native Josh Tarzwell drew his club even with his 25th of the season, creating a deadlock heading into the final period and more pressure for Clouston’s group. “We’ve had some adversity lately; we had adversity in this game so it was a real microcosm of what’s been going on and we were able to stay with it and persevere.”
Zane Franklin’s 27th of the season was the go-ahead goal, Logan Stankoven’s 19th was the dagger. Though it’s never an easy night playing Sutter’s team, the victory was not only “much-needed” according to Clouston, but it also allowed the bench boss to reflect on his hometown in central Alberta.
“[I] grew up on a farm in Viking, Alberta and that’s where the Sutters are from. Brent’s a little bit older than me — five or six years — and it was really cool growing up and being able to watch those guys and look up to them.”
