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HomeNewsRebel with a cause: Red Deer’s Fancy trips up Cougars

Rebel with a cause: Red Deer’s Fancy trips up Cougars

The Red Deer Rebels were footloose and Fancy-free on Family Day.

A 32-save performance by goaltender Byron Fancy led the Rebels to 4-2 road victory on Monday in front of an announced sold-out crowd at CN Centre against the Prince George Cougars.

Fancy may have shut the door on the Cougars playoff chances who went winless during a two-game mini-homestand (losing 4-2 to Calgary on Saturday and 4-2 Monday to Red Deer).

Josh Tarzwell opened the scoring for Red Deer 10:39 into the first period taking a Jaxsen Wiebe pass and potting it past Cougars netminder Taylor Gauthier for his 27th of the season.

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“I just went to the net, Grubber and Wieber did a nice job of the getting the puck to the net and I was just on the fortunate end of it,” said Tarzwell.

Prince George drew back on even terms a minute later thanks to a sharp-angle shot by Jonny Hooker who handcuffed Fancy.

Ethan Browne put the Cougars on top at 7:37 of the middle frame burying a Vladislav Mikhalchuk feed for a 2-1 advantage.

The Rebels slowly took the game over late in the period courtesy of their fourth-line as Ethan Rowland rifled one past Gauthier.

From there, a nice individual effort by Ethan Sakowich led to a mad scramble in front of the Cougars net where Chris Douglas slid it through the wickets of Gauthier giving Red Deer a 3-2 lead after 40 minutes.

“It was just a greasy one, I didn’t even see it go in. I was just on my knees whacking at it hoping it would go in, I haven’t had one in a while so it was good to get a greasy one like that,” said Douglas.

In the third, Red Deer protected its one-goal lead with a text-book defensive approach under Head Coach and General Manager Brent Sutter.

Jayden Grubbe added the insurance marker sliding the puck into an empty net, thus improving the Rebels record to 20-31-2-3 on the season.

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Sutter spoke post-game with MyPGNow.com who touched on his team’s effort after getting outshot 15-5 in the first period.

“I didn’t think it was that bad we just turned too many pucks over but then we got going in the second and third period and played pretty well.”

The long time bench boss also praised the play of Fancy who was named the game’s third star as well as the youthful roster that he has with 13 players that are 17-years-old or younger.

“We expect that from our goaltenders every night if you don’t have good goaltending in this league you have nothing.”

“It’s the youngest team we have ever had in Red Deer. I am glad we are playing in the division that we do because we are playing against some really elite teams every night and I think it makes our kids better and it makes our team better.”

The Cougars drop to 16-30-3-4 and remain nine points back of the Seattle Thunderbirds for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

A pointless weekend on home ice didn’t sit well with Hooker.

“You know the difference between a win and a loss is so small and it’s usually a couple of details that cost us.”

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“I think we took our foot off the peddle for a couple of minutes and that’s what hurt us.”

PG outshot the Rebels 34-27 with both teams going 0-for-2 on the power-play.

The Cougars head south of the border for a two-game US Division swing that begins Friday in Everett against the Silvertips and then wraps it up against the Thunderbirds Sunday in Kent.

Prince George returns to CN Centre on February 25th and 26th against the Kelowna Rockets (24-26-2-2).

Puck drop for both games is 7:00 PM.

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