Rebels cool off the Tigers

By Medicine Hat News on December 14, 2019.

A wild comeback fell just short on Friday night at Westerner Park Centrium.

After taking a five-goal deficit into the third period, the Medicine Hat Tigers rallied to within a single shot of overtime before finally settling for a riveting 6-4 loss to the Red Deer Rebels.

Medicine Hat seized control of the early momentum on back-to-back man advantages, but the Western Hockey League’s top power play unit was stymied on a slew of saves by Red Deer’s Byron Fancy – then the Rebels turned things the other way.

Shortly after coming up empty on the second advantage, Tigers forward Lukas Svejkovsky was sent to the box for hooking and Rebels winger Cameron Hausinger beat Evan Fradette – starting in his first career game with Mads Søgaard competing at the IIHF World Junior Championship Division 1 tournament – to give Red Deer the edge after 20 minutes.

Despite earning another pair of power plays early in the second period, Medicine Hat quickly found themselves down 3-0 when Rebels winger Arshdeep Bains struck for two straight shorthanded tallies less than three minutes apart.

Special teams continued to plague the Tigers when defenceman Parker Gavlas was nabbed for slashing later in the period, and Josh Tarzwell converted to make Red Deer’s power play unit 2-for-2 on the night.

The Rebels kept coming and Jayden Grubbe broke through for the first even strength goal of the game in the dying minutes of the second – leaving the Tigers buried in a 5-0 deficit after putting up 19 goals over their past two games.

Tigers centre Bryan Lockner finally cracked the goose egg seven minutes into the third when he pounced on a loose puck at the side of the net and jammed it past Fancy to start the comeback.

Corson Hopwo cut the deficit down to three by finishing off a cross-crease feed from James Hamblin with five minutes left in regulation, then Brett Kemp picked the top corner just over a minute later to shift the pressure squarely onto Fancy’s shoulders.

Riding a new wave of energy, Hamblin crashed the net and chipped a bouncing puck behind Fancy to silence the crowd of 3,649 in Red Deer, but Rebels centre Brett Davis snuffed out the rally with an empty-netter in the final minute of regulation.

Fancy held on to lock up the 39-save victory, pushing Red Deer to 11-17-0-3 on the season.

Fradette stopped 19 shots in the loss, dropping Medicine Hat to 22-9-1-0.

The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre to host the Edmonton Oil Kings (21-6-5-2) Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in their final game before the midseason holiday break.

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