When a player gets locked in the zone, good things happen. For the Moose Jaw Warriors, Adam Evanoff stole the show.
A 46-save effort by the Warriors starting netminder led his team to a 3-0 victory in front of 3,717 fans at the Westerner Park Centrium.
“A better effort than (Friday) and I think that showed. We competed a lot harder on pucks and that was an unacceptable effort (Friday). We corrected it and got the result,” Evanoff said, in reference to the Warriors 5-0 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings Friday.
It was especially evident that this was Evanoff’s game in the final five minutes as the majority of his 18 third period saves came with his team up 2-0.
The opening 40 minutes of this game didn’t provide any goals, much to the dismay of the Rebels as they pumped 28 shots at Evanoff. There were few grade-A chances in the game to that point, but Red Deer did hold the decided edge.
A late second-period penalty led to the opening goal for the Warriors.
With 25 seconds remaining in the Dawson Barteaux minor, the teams faced off for the beginning of the third period.
Moose Jaw won the faceoff and set up in the Red Deer end of the ice. Ryder Korczak found a loose puck and went bar down on Ethan Anders who was making his first start since November 23rd. The goal came just one second after the penalty expired.
“We had 20-something seconds to kill. We don’t win the faceoff and they capitalize on it. Obviously, we were having a tough time in the offensive zone scoring any goals. Their goalie was very good,” said Rebels general manager/head coach Brent Sutter.
Moose Jaw extended its lead six and a half minutes later.
Tate Popple scored his fourth goal of the season, assisted by former Red Deer Rebel Carson Sass.
The second Moose Jaw goal took the wind out of the sails of the fans. The arena was pretty quiet until the final three minutes.
“I thought up until the last 3 minutes we didn’t have a lot of urgency offensively. We were just kinda soft on pucks and soft, flutter pucks to the net,” Sutter said.
Those last three minutes saw Anders pulled from the net, giving the Rebels a sixth attacker. They spent at least a minute and a half in the Warriors’ end of the ice, but there was nothing doing despite giving Evanoff everything he could handle.
With seconds left on the clock, Popple scored his second of the night and sealed the 3-0 victory for the visitors.
Rebel Yell… The three stars in the building were 1) Adam Evanoff 2) Jayden Grubbe 3) Ryder Korczak. Grubbe led all players with 7 shots on net as the Rebels outshot the Warriors 46-24. Both teams were 0-for-2 on the power play.
Red Deer embarks on a 5-game road trip that will take the team through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The trade deadline falls on Friday, January 10th. Moose Jaw plays Sunday afternoon in Calgary.
