From start to finish, the game lacked consistency in nearly every facet for the Red Deer Rebels.
Passes were in the player’s skates, the dump ins weren’t chased with any vigor and the turnovers were plentiful.
After an entire week off, the Rebels came out with a lot of energy to start the game but could not generate any offense.
Head Coach Brent Sutter did not mince words when speaking about the team’s preparation and practice ethic, specifically on Friday.
“When you get a break like that you have to get engaged early your first game back and I just didn’t think we did that and it hurt us all night,” said the Rebels bench boss.
“We have to be better tomorrow.”
On their second shot of the game, the Hitmen took the wind out of the Rebels sails.
Calgary’s captain, Mark Kastelic tipped a Jett Woo point shot that fooled Ethan Anders. It was Kastelic’s 22nd goal of the season.
Following the goal, Red Deer looked flat. They just could not muster up any opportunities as Calgary clogged up the neutral zone and made it difficult for Red Deer to get any offensive zone time.
Calgary outshot Red Deer 11-5 through the first 20 minutes.
Then it was penalty trouble that cost the Rebels another goal against.
With two men in the box, Woo fed the puck to Riley Stotts to the side of Anders. The goalie had no chance to get over to make the same and Stotts’ 20th goal of the season made it 2-0 Calgary.
“You’re still in the game, it’s 1-0, and you take a bad penalty and it puts you down two men, 5-on-3 and they capitalize on it,” said Sutter.
“You look at the goals they got, it’s the details in the game that we work on every day in practice, we just weren’t sharp on and we got buried because of it.”
With 1:08 left to play in the second period, Kastelic potted his second goal of the night. Following a bad rebound on the original save by Anders, the puck just sat in the slot area and Kastelic made it count and the Hitmen padded their lead.
Red Deer did all they could in the second period and it never felt like enough. They continued to dump in the puck and chase after it, but the Hitmen defenders were just stronger on the puck.
The shots in the middle frame were much closer at 12-11 for Calgary.
Josh Prokop added a fourth Hitmen goal with 14:13 left to play. None of the Rebels players picked him up on the play and he walked right in and beat a sprawling Anders. It was Prokop’s 11th goal of the season.
“Details, I didn’t like our game at all tonight. I thought our details weren’t very good and our positional play. Our play with the puck, when we had it and we didn’t have four guys working for the guy that had it,” said Sutter.
“Just our details, we did a lot of looping. Not a lot of stopping and starting.”
Slightly more than a minute later, Cameron Hausinger won a faceoff deep in the Hitmen end. The puck went right to Ben King and his wrist shot beat a screened Brayden Peters to claw the Rebels to within three.
The hill to climb back in the game was seemingly growing bigger by the minute as the Rebels could not get into the Hitmen zone with any pressure or frequency.
Finally, it was the Rebels fourth line that made some noise and made things interesting. Dallon Melin sent a pass to Jace Isley in the slot and he knocked it past Peters. With 3:48 to play in the game, the Rebels cut the deficit to two.
Anders vacated the net with more than three minutes to play. Unfortunately for the Rebels, Stotts corralled a puck in the neutral zone, stepped over the red line and fired the puck into the wide-open cage.
The goal sealed a 5-2 win for the Hitmen.
Peters made 20 saves on 22 shots while Anders stopped 25-of-29 shots directed his way in the loss.
“He’s been excellent for us, I thought he’s established himself as the guy right now, we’re gonna run with him,” said Calgary Hitmen Head Coach Steve Hamilton of Brayden Peters performance.
Rebel Yell… The three stars in the building were 1) Mark Kastelic 2) Ben King 3) Riley Stotts. Kastelic also led all players with 5 shots on net, Josh Tarzwell had 4 for the Rebels. The first star was also the best faceoff man on the ice at 16-of-25. The top Rebel was Chris Douglas, he was 4-of-5. Calgary was 1-for-3 on the power play, Red Deer was 0-for-4. The two teams meet again on Sunday afternoon in Calgary. Puck drop is scheduled for 2 pm.
