Persistent Rebels Tip Chiefs In Last Minute

In a developmental setting such as the Western Hockey League it’s sometimes hard to tell the front-runners from the stragglers, so quickly do fortunes change.

The young Red Deer Rebels sputtered through the first half of the season while the Spokane Chiefs, stocked with veterans, came out smoking.

The smokers became the smoked Wednesday night when the Rebs rode the hot stick of B.J. Young to a 4-3 win before 5,113.

It was a rare home-ice loss for the Chiefs, who blew a chance to move into a first-place tie in the WHL West Division with the idle Tri-City Americans.

The loss was Spokane’s third straight, its first at home since Nov. 26 and the first against a WHL Central Division team after three straight wins. The Chiefs fell to 15-4-3 in the Arena.

Young’s game-winner with 44 seconds left - his second goal of the night - was the fatal stroke on a night when the hardest workers prevailed.

Young, sent to Red Deer last year by the Tri-City Americans for defenseman Byron Briske, made the Chiefs play catch-up all night. His unassisted goal at 14:03 of the first period opened the scoring and his second at 19:16 of the third wrapped it up.

“He’s a talented kid but he scores first on a breakaway and his second comes when he’s home free with our goalie with less than a minute left,” Spokane coach Mike Babcock said. “There’s something wrong with both of those situations. We’ve got to be better than that. Our strength has been team defense but since we’ve come back (from the holiday break) it’s turned into our greatest weakness.

“I’m not saying we didn’t work hard at any point but we didn’t start until after the first period. The key to the game isn’t the shots (Spokane out-shot the Rebels 41-29). It’s that they came to play and we weren’t prepared. You’ve got to start when the puck is dropped.”

The Rebels, 2-7-2 in their last 11 games, mounted the early pressure, outshooting the Chiefs 9-3 and taking a 2-0 lead.

“We’re not a team that gets intimidated,” Red Deer coach Rick Carriere said. “We’ve got size, strength and good team toughness. I don’t think there’s been a game when we’ve been taken out in the first period.”

Young described the game-winner, his second in as many games.

“It was just a little tuck-and-drag move. I waited until the goalie opened up and slid it through. It wasn’t a great goal. It’s something I try every day at practice. We were on the forecheck, the puck bounced out for me, I just faked the shot, pulled back and put it in.

“To win in a barn like this against a great team is a great start to this road trip.”

Greg Schmidt and Jesse Wallin also scored for Red Deer (15-21-4).

Martin Cerven, Randy Favaro and Trent Whitfield struck for the Chiefs (24-12-3), who are still trying to recapture the magic of 1995.

The Chiefs erased deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 but were unable to contain Young, who added a pair of assists, and were unable to do much with Rebels goaltender Chris Wickenheiser, who had 38 saves including 13 in the third period when he played his best 20 minutes of the season, Carriere said.

“Out objective in the third period was to get the next save and then the next goal. We kept getting the next save and finally we got the next goal. It was persistence,” the Rebels coach said. “This is the first game where we’ve had 20 (players suited up) since the end of November. What that did was allow our young guys to get a lot of ice time and that’s going to be important in the stretch run of a tight division.”

The Chiefs are in Portland on Friday night and back home on Saturday night with Tri-City.

Red Deer 4, Spokane 3

Red Deer 2 1 1 - 4

Spokane 1 2 0 - 3

First period-1, Red Deer, Young 29, 14:03. 2, Red Deer, Schmidt 24 (Young, Broda), 18:33. 3, Spokane, Cerven 5 (Cardarelli), 19:07. Key penalties-Magarrell, Spo, 3:37; Favaro, Spo, 8:04; Vandermeer, RD, 14:24.

Second period-4, Spokane, Favaro 12 (Lemanowicz), 10:30. 5, Red Deer, Wallin 2 (Young), 11:18 (pp). 6, Spokane, Whitfield (Favaro, Cirjak), 17:04 (pp). Key penalties-Ward, RD, 6:32; Gillam, Spo, 11:11; McDonald, RD, 14:51; Wickenheiser, RD, served by Stachniak, 15:22; Sinclair, Spo, 18:56.

Third period-7, Red Deer, Young 30 (Broda), 19:16. Key penalties-Broda, RD, :29; Leeb, Spo, 10:24; Broda, RD, 10:54; Shaw, RD, 19:39.

Power-play opp.-Red Deer 1 of 6; Spokane 1 of 7.Saves- Red Deer, Wickenheiser 8-17-13-38. Spokane, Lemanowicz 13-6-6-25.A-5,113.

, DataTimes MEMO: Changed from the Idaho edition.