The Castlegar Rebels lost to the Nelson Leafs in the second period of overtime for the second night in a row on Wednesday night.
But unlike the teams’ first playoff matchup, the game wasn’t scoreless at the end of regulation.
Near the end of the first, Vince Bitonti took two minutes for slashing, and on the power play the Leafs’ Jack Karran, assisted by Ryan Cooper and Ryan Piva, picked up a rebound and shot the puck into the net while Curt Doyle was caught up on the other side.
The Leafs’ Jaiden LaPorte, assisted Nicholas Wihak and Hunt, scored his team’s second goal early in the second.
Later in the period, the Leafs’ Michael Bladon took two for slashing and soon after Jackson Zimmermann took two for roughing.
Edward Lindsey, assisted by Chris Breese and Bitonti, took advantage of the five-on-three opportunity to score the Rebel’s first goal, and then while Zimmermann was still in the box, Shawn Campbell, assisted by Evan Della Paoelera, scored his team’s second goal.
But less than five minutes into the third the Leafs retook the lead with an unassisted goal from Bladon.
Then Ren Mason took two minutes for boarding and Breese scored a short-handed goal off his own rebound from a breakaway, tying the score at 3-3.
The Leafs had an opportunity to end the game early in the first overtime period but were denied.
Just before the end of the third Edward Lindsey had taken two minutes for boarding and then early into the first overtime period Aiden Bo Cornell took a two-minute penalty and a 10-minute misconduct for head contact, giving the Leafs a five-on-three power play. But the Rebels managed to kill the penalties.
“Our four D that we cycle through there are unreal and Shawn Campbell is really, really good too. He’s the best five-on-three killer I’ve ever had … to the point that yesterday we used our timeout just simply to give him a rest so he could continue the five-on-three,” said Bill Rotheisler, head coach and general manager for the Rebels.
He says he didn’t really see the hit Lindsey got called for and didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it.
“That other penalty happened so fast too, which that’s a tough one as well,” said Rotheisler. “It’s tough because he was down before Bo hit him. Hopefully, he’s all right and the collision didn’t look good, but it’s hard to call.”
Mario DiBella, head coach for the Leafs, didn’t think the penalty Cornell received was severe enough.
“I don’t understand how that isn’t a five-minute penalty when a player is injured and has to leave the game, and the perpetrator is left in the game. It doesn’t seem like we’re rewarding the right behaviour there,” he said.
Despite the Leafs having multiple chances in the first overtime, Doyle locked them out and the game headed into a second overtime period, where Piva, assisted by LaPorte and Dash Thompson, scored the gaming winning goal for the second night in a row.
The game ended 4-3 for the Leafs with 11:25 left on the board and the Leafs outshot the Rebels 51-23.
Doyle’s save percentage for the game was 0.922.
“Curt’s been unreal. If everyone competed with half the heart that Curt has then we’d be winning these games 10-0,” said Rotheisler. “He’s good, he’s skilled and he’s one of the best competitors I had on the ice.”
Rotheisler wasn’t satisfied with the way his team played.
“We’ve got to play a lot better. We’re not going to win any games playing like that,” he said.
“The better team won tonight is the reality of it,” Rotheisler added. “I didn’t feel that way other nights and stuff, so that’s unfortunate. Like it would have been really nice to have the win yesterday when we deserved it.”
DiBella, on the other hand, seemed happy with his team’s performance.
“I felt we played a consistent game. We outshot them 51-23. I thought we pushed the pace their way,” he said. “They got a fortunate break in the second period with the penalty calls, which I thought were a bit liberal as far as the calls were made. It got them back in the game.”
Special mention also goes to Nelson’s bear mascot, who gave a strong performance on the sidelines.
During one of the timeouts, he snuck behind the Rebels’ bench and mimed listening to Rotheisler for the benefit of the crowd, then snuck down to the Nelson bench to “whisper” to DiBella.
He also kept the crowd entertained with his dancing and high fiving and led several chants during the long game.
The Rebels will face the Leafs on home ice on Friday at 4 p.m. at the Castlegar & District Community Complex.
