After a hard-fought series against the Beaver Valley Nitehawks, the Castlegar Rebels advanced to the second round of the playoffs with a Game 7 victory on Sunday.
The Rebels scored the first goal of the game in the first period when Chris Breese fired it back and through the gap, assisted by Shawn Campbell and Ren Mason.
In the last few minutes of the first, it looked like the Rebels had scored again, but the goal was waved off because the net was off before the puck crossed the line.
The Nitehawks’ Dylan Kent, assisted by Kevan McBean and Dylan Heppler, tied things up quickly in the second after firing the puck into the top left corner over Curt Doyle’s shoulder on a power play.
Soon afterwards Edward Lindsey deflected a shot from John Moeller and sent it flying past Liam Coulter, putting the Rebels back in the lead.
Then Tanner Costa pushed the Rebels to a two-point lead by slapping in a shot off a neat little play set up by Breese and Campbell late in the period.
The Nitehawks tried to amp things up in the third, but the Rebels kept up the pressure and when the Nitehawks took two penalties late in the period Lindsey skated past the three Nitehawks on the ice, straight at the net and fired in the puck. He was assisted by Vince Bitonti.
The Rebels won the game 4-1.
“We came out, we were happy with our game yesterday. We were happy with Curt — Curt was a big difference, he did very well for us. Systematically we made a few adjustments and the boys came out to play,” Bill Rotheisler, Rebels head coach and general manager, said following the game. “Today they were on. We know that BV has so many good players, but we really like our depth. We think our depth is one of our advantages.”
Over the course of the series, the Rebels also worked out how to counter the Nitehawks’ forecheck.
“The first couple of game we were the passive team and they were the aggressive ones and we kind of flipped things around and I would say that they were trying to, I just really think that our energy levels were a bit better,” said Rotheisler. “And our breakouts. I mean we talked to our centreman to make sure that we had basically our centreman as another defenseman back on those breakouts.”
The Nitehawks were missing their captain Sam Swanson, who dressed despite an injury, but didn’t play much.
“He’s a huge part of that team, and he dressed but he didn’t play really and he was a hurting unit,” said Rotheisler.
“You always miss your captain. We would miss ours and that’s the nature of the game,” he added.
The Rebels will face the Nelson Leafs in the second round starting on Tuesday.
Rotheisler planned to give his team the evening to celebrate but said they’d start reviewing video of the Leafs on Monday.
“We’re going to keep them off the ice for the most part. Guys who want to skate, can skate, but tomorrow’s a ton of video,” he said.
