Tigers erase three goal deficit, beat Rebels 5-4 in overtime

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Red Deer took a 2-1 lead 1:22 into period two when Ethan Rowland took a slick pass from behind the net by Keaton Sorensen and ripping a wrister from the slot past Bjorklund.

Kyle Masters made it 3-1 for the home side when his wrist shot from a sharp angle handcuffed Bjorklund and trickled over the goal line at the 11:16 mark of the middle frame.

It was 4:26 into the third period when 20-year-old forward Chris Douglas, on an outstanding individual effort that saw him intercept a pass at the Tigers blue line before dashing in and firing home a breakaway goal, gave the Rebels a 4-1 lead.

Cue the Tigers comeback.

Corson Hopwo kicked off his big night with his first of the game at 9:23 to make 4-2.

That sparked Medicine Hat big time as the Tigers took the game over in the final half of the third period. Hopwo potted another one on a great tip-in of a shot from Ryan Chyzowski to make it 4-3 with 1:58 left to play.

With Bjorklund on the bench for the extra attacker it would be Lukas Svejkovsky beating Anders high to the short side with 41 seconds left on the clock to tie the game 4-4 and send it to overtime.

Medicine Hat looked to have the game won early in the 3-on-3 extra frame as Oasiz Weisblatt, with Anders tangled up with teammate Ben King 10 feet from the Rebels net, fired on the wide open cage only to be turned aside by a sprawling Chase Leslie for Red Deer.

The reprieve for the Rebels was short-lived, however, as Hopwo would break in alone less than a minute later and shoot on Anders, who made the save before being crashed into by a back checking Masters, carrying both them and the puck across the goal line for Hopwo’s hat trick goal and the game winner.

“We didn’t play right in our zone and defensively in the third period,” Douglas lamented. “There’s always going to be ups and downs throughout games, but you can’t have that happen, especially in the third period when you’re pushing to take the win.”

“The game got sloppy for us in the last 10 minutes, and we just lost our focus. I don’t know if the kids thought it be easy because we were up 4-1 at one point,” GM/Head Coach Brent Sutter wondered.

“They scored to make it 4-2 and then we took a bad penalty and they capitalized on that. You need to be smarter at that point in time. Just undisciplined is the best way to put it.

“We had three turnovers in overtime when we had the puck on our sticks, and we turned the puck over three times and (they) get quality scoring chances, and obviously the last one went into the net.”

Despite the ugliness of the final ten minutes of the third period and overtime, Sutter liked much of what he saw from his team through the first 50 minutes.

“We did some really good things. I just thought that we were on the puck and finished checks. For the most part we were pretty good in our own zone, we were smart with the puck and played the game simple.”

Red Deer outshot Medicine Hat 33-31 on the night and was 1-for-5 on the power play while the Tigers were 1-for-4.

The Rebels and Tigers meet again Saturday night in Medicine Hat. Game time is 7:30 with the live broadcast on 106.7 REWIND Radio beginning at 7:20 p.m.