The St. Albert Raiders were skating on thin ice Tuesday after losing twice last weekend in the midget AAA provincial final.
Victories of 6-1 and 4-1 by the two-time reigning champion Red Deer Rebels left the Raiders in a must-win situation in the best-of-five series.
"Our desperation level needs to be higher," said Sandro Pisani, head coach of the Raiders. "We have to win one period at a time and as cliché as it is, that's the reality of the situation. That has to be the focus."
A victory Tuesday by the Raiders in Red Deer would extend the best-of-five series to a fourth game Friday at 8 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena. Tuesday's score was unavailable at press time.
The fifth and deciding game would be Sunday in Red Deer at 3 p.m.
The playoff winner will host the British Columbia champion in the best-of-three series to determine the Pacific region representative at the Telus Cup next month in Leduc.
Rebels head coach Doug Quinn wasn't ready to predict a playoff sweep after winning game two Sunday in St. Albert.
"They're a good team and they're very well coached and I'm certainly looking for it to be another very difficult game for us on Tuesday," Quinn said.
The Rebels escaped the first period tied at one goal apiece despite being out-shot 14-5.
"St. Albert certainly came to play. We were definitely on our heels in the first period. They were taking it to us and we were lucky to come out of there 1-1," said Quinn, who noted the Rebels took longer than expected to adjust to the cozy confines of the Akinsdale rink.
Shots were 9-3 for the home team after Kevin Miller opened the scoring with 7:15 left in the period. The 17-year-old centre redirected a pass by Trace Elson during a two-on-one for his team-leading fifth playoff goal.
Shorthanded goal
Late in the period with the Raiders on the power play, Rebels' captain Brady Bakke converted a turnover in the St. Albert zone to even the score with 1:13 left in the man advantage.
"That shorthanded goal kind of calmed us down a little bit," Quinn said. "In the second period we settled in and capitalized on some of our opportunities."
The Raiders never recovered from the massive momentum shift.
"We played a real good period of hockey, and then to be tied 1-1 was a little bit disheartening for the group," Pisani said. "We kind of lost some of the mojo we had early on."
In the second period the Rebels scored three times on 16 shots against netminder Wyatt Hoflin. At the other end of the ice, Dasan Sydora was tested only twice by the Raiders.
"We had a good first, we just let off in the second and that hurt us," Miller said. "We've got to play a full 60 minutes otherwise we're not going to beat that team."
The Rebels broke the tie on the power play 26 seconds into the second with a blast that went in off the post.
A scramble in front of Hoflin put the Rebels up 3-1 at 5:04 of the period.
With 57 seconds left in the second, the Rebels capitalized on the second four-minute penalty to the Raiders in the period.
"I took the penalty on that play and I will take responsibility for it. I can't be taking that penalty," Miller said of his double minor for contact to the head.
Pisani wasn't thrilled by the parade of Raiders to the penalty box.
"We took some undisciplined penalties and that put us on our heels for long periods. You're playing certain guys a lot and other guys are watching, which took away from the flow of the game," Pisani said.
The third period was scoreless despite a rash of penalties by the Rebels. The final shot count was 30-23 for the Raiders.
"I was happy with the third up until we took some really silly penalties in the last seven minutes. It certainly gave them an opportunity to get back in the game," Quinn said.
Third period letdown
In the series opener Friday in Red Deer the Raiders hung tough going into the third down 3-1.
"For 40 minutes we were right where we needed to be and then they scored an early one and then we lost our focus and discipline in the last seven or eight minutes in the game," Pisani said.
Quinn said the score was somewhat deceiving.
"Early on they were taking it to us. They were coming hard on their forecheck and they were clogging up the middle quite a bit and it was causing quite a bit of problems for us," Quinn said. "Once we kind of got going, we got some momentum and when you seem to score on your chances it's kind of deflating for them."
With the season hanging by a thread, Miller was confident the Raiders would prevail in game three.
"We've just got to focus on the positives," Miller said. "In (Sunday's) game we controlled the play for about half the game so we can obviously play with this team. We outshot them so we just need to capitalize and get some goals past that goalie because he's pretty good. If we do that we should be fine."
Sydora was 8-1 in the playoffs with four shutouts and only seven goals against in 540 minutes for the No. 1 defensive team in league play.
"Dasan is a perfect goalie for our team. We don't give up many shots but when we do it always seems to be some point blank turnover and he always stays focused throughout the game to make those saves. Even in (Sunday's) game we had a couple of major turnovers and Dasan was there to bail his teammates out," Quinn said.
ICE CHIPS: In the regular season the south-division leading Rebels (25-6-3) beat the second place north-division Raiders (21-9-4) by scores of 4-3 in St. Albert and 4-1 in Red Deer.
The Raiders were 6-4 in the playoffs after their first loss on home ice in the postseason.
