Kings Escape With Overtime Victory at Briercrest

by Sam and Jeremy Demoskoff

The Briercrest Clippers faced off against the rival Red Deer Kings Saturday afternoon for a rematch following a tight 3-2 loss the night before, and Red Deer was able to skate away with another one goal victory as they prevailed 5-4 in overtime.

In a curious inversion of fates, Red Deer has dominated the regular season matchups with the Clippers for the past two seasons- boasting a perfect record. However, when it comes to the all-important playoffs, the Clippers own the bragging rights on the heels of a sweep against these same Kings last March. This appeared to be on the minds of both teams from the drop of the puck, as the pace was fast and the checking hard.

Briercrest struck first off the stick of Zach Thususka, who capitalized on a rebound opportunity to get the home team on the board. Trey Doell added another goal a couple minutes later, and Briercrest had a 2-0 lead while the ice was still shiny.

The Kings managed to shake off the early deficit thanks to some good puck movement out of their own zone, and they produced a trio of goals to give themselves a 3-2 lead minutes into the second period. 

Some solid work by Cole Stevenson helped find Halen Cordoni at the side of the net, who ripped home an equalizer. Red Deer would retake the lead at the midway point of the period, and the teams headed into the second intermission with Red Deer holding on to a 4-3 lead.

Briercrest knew they needed to come out with determination in the final 20 minutes, and that's exactly what they did- creating dangerous scoring chances and continuing to play physically, with Theo Citrullo and Brandon Kelly leading the way. Doell cashed in on a nifty setup by Jake Dale, and the boisterous crowd at the Barkman arena was treated to 3 on 3 overtime to settle things.

With the game just one shot away from ending, Dominik Tmej made some beautiful saves to keep his team alive early. The referees put their whistles away and end-to-end action ensued as each change of possession resulted in a quality scoring chance. Colton Aikens almost eluded a Kings defender as he broke in on Weersink, but a wily backcheck negated the threat and sent a Red Deer attacker in on the right wing; his top-shelf laser lit the lamp and the guests escaped with the win.

Players of the game were Jaxon Steele for Red Deer and Trey Doell for Briercrest.

"We put in good hard work today against one of the top teams in the league," commented Clippers assistant coach Joshua Laferriere afterwards. "I think we took it to them and we battled hard." 

Briercrest solidified their hold on fifth place with the single point, while Red Deer has a little breathing room now at the top of the standings. The Clippers will head to NAIT next weekend before returning for their final regular season series against the SAIT Trojans Feb. 17-18.