Red Deer’s skilled offense came to life against the Prince George Cougars in an inter-conference battle. The Rebels extended the Cougars losing streak to six games and got themselves back on the winning track and into first place in the extremely tight Central Division.
It didn’t always look like the Rebels were going to pull out a victory as both teams played each other evenly through 20 minutes.
Early penalty trouble for the Cougars nearly spelled disaster, giving the Rebels an early five-on-three for 1:37 but Red Deer just couldn’t capitalize on either power play.
Shortly after the penalties expired, a couple of the Rebels’ younger players connected to open the scoring for Red Deer when Arshdeep Bains scored his fifth goal of the season. Alex Morozoff’s pass to the crease area lead to a chance for Bains and he tucked it under Isaiah DiLaura for the go-ahead tally.
“I thought our young players were good tonight. They got a big first goal for us early in the game especially after the power play didn’t get it going for us.” said Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter
The Cougars would not roll over though as they evened the game at one. A loose puck around the Rebel net landed on the stick of Josh Curtis. His eighth goal of the year was unassisted and provided the offense the Cougars needed to head to the dressing room tied.
“We just kind of got back to our game, I didn’t think our defensive play was as good as we wanted to be. We started moving pucks quicker and moving our feet and success started to come.” said Rebels fourth overall scorer, Brandon Hagel, of the team’s early efforts.
Both teams battled hard for the lead through 10 minutes of the second period. Red Deer’s skill began to take over in the second half of the period and the Rebels leading scorer was sent in on a breakaway. Hagel accepted a long lead pass and headed in on Cougars netminder Isaiah DiLaura. On his way to the net he was hooked and didn’t manage a shot. The ref signalled to centre ice and the crowd went wild in anticipation of a penalty shot.
Unfortunately, the attempt was stymied by DiLaura.
Hagel’s revenge came just 49 seconds later. After accepting a Cameron Hausinger pass at the half wall, Hagel walked in to the front of the net and roofed the puck behind the Prince George goaltender.
“I was just trying to do the same move as I did the past couple shootouts, but the puck flipped up on me,” said Hagel of his missed opportunity.
“Our goalie coach was putting stuff on the board before the game so it’s getting in my head a bit so I might have to tell him to stop,” he added jokingly. “But really, it didn’t work out but I got him (DiLaura) back.”
The goal proved to be the game winner, but the Rebels didn’t stop there.
With under two minutes to play in the second period, it was Cameron Hausinger’s turn to hit the score sheet. Chris Douglas collected a puck at the Rebel blue-line that was whiffed on by the Cougars defenseman. There was suddenly two other Rebels with him and on a three-on-one rush the pass from Douglas to Hausinger found the back of the net.
It was 3-1 Red Deer as the teams headed back to their respective dressing rooms after 40 minutes.
The wind was taken out of Prince George’s sails following Hagel’s second goal of the night and 30th of the season. The Morinville, AB native collected a Reese Johnson pass in the corner, curled out to the slot and was given all kinds of space to wire a shot above DiLaura’s glove hand.
Exactly one minute later Cameron Hausinger won a faceoff to Brett Davis and his shot from the top of the circle sailed by DiLaura. His 15th of the year sealed the game for the Rebels.
With a four goal lead and under 14 minutes to play, some of the veteran Rebels were rested to give the young guns a chance to shine.
“We stayed with it, I thought in the third period we did a really good job of managing the game the right way and making sure we understood what the score was.”
“We had a lot of good players tonight right through our whole lineup,” he said. “Hauser (Hausinger) was really good as was Johnny’s line (Reese Johnson with Jeff de Wit and Josh Tarzwell), and what do you say about Hags (Brandon Hagel)?”
“Hags is certainly a catalyst but we need our older players to be good players, our best players to be our best players and our younger players to just continue to get better and grow every game.
“It’s a big win. We needed two points tonight after last night”
The final score from the Centrium in Red Deer was 5-1 for the home side. Attendance was 4343.
Rebel Yell… The three stars of the game were Brandon Hagel, Cameron Hausinger and Ethan Anders. Anders made 26 saves in the win, his 23rd of the year. Neither team managed a power play goal, Red Deer had 4 tries while Prince George had 2. Brett Davis and Cole Moberg had 5 shots on net a piece. Reese Johnson was 16-of-22 in the faceoff dot, the Rebels were 38-of-59 as a team.
Playoff hunt… The Red Deer win combined with a Lethbridge loss and a Medicine Hat loss and Edmonton being idle, launched Red Deer into first place in the Central Division. Their lead is a single point.
