Rebels’ dream ends with loss to Huskies
Rouyn-Noranda earns date with London in Memorial Cup final
RED DEER Chase Marchand has left a lot of teams shaking their heads.
Add the Red Deer Rebels to that list.
Marchand, the QMJHL’s goaltender of the year, kicked out 36 shots to backstop the RouynNoranda Huskies to a 3-1 Memorial Cup semifinal victory over the host Red Deer Rebels Friday night.
Luke Philp was the lone Rebels player to chisel a puck past Marchand while the Huskies power play produced a pair of goals.
Francis Perron, Martins Dzierkals and Nikolas Brouillard did the damage for the top-ranked Huskies, who will face the wellrested and undefeated London Knights in the Memorial Cup final Sunday (2:30 p.m., Sportsnet West, 106.7 FM The Drive).
The Knights skated to a 5-2 win over the CHL’s top-ranked club during the round robin.
The Rebels big line of Philp, Jake DeBrusk and Adam Helewka dominated the round robin meeting between the two clubs.
They were unable to gain the same kind of traction in the rematch.
The Huskies came out determined not to suffer their first three-game losing skid in more than a year, dating to March of the 2014-15 campaign.
Perron silenced the sold-out Centrium crowd with his first goal of the tournament just past the midway point of the opening period.
Timo Meier found his captain on the power play and the QMJHL league and playoff MVP put a perfect slapper inside the far post.
Dzierkals further deflated the building just 1:07 later when the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect’s backhander somehow found the back of the net for a 2-0 lead.
The Rebels rebounded from a 2-0 deficit to post a 5-2 victory in their first meeting with the Huskies, but this one went down a different path.
With the Rebels in the box again, Brouillard’s blast from the point made it through a screen to give Rouyn-Noranda a 3-0 lead.
Philp, the Rebels captain, injected some life back into his squad while the hosts were enjoying a power play of their own, but Marchand stood tall the rest of the period to limit the damage to one goal.
The Rebels’ best chances in the first half of the third period came while they were short-handed.
Adam Musil found himself in all alone, but had the puck roll off his stick after making a series of moves.
Rebels blueliner Haydn Fleury put a wrister through traffic with a couple minutes to go, but Marchand made the glove save.
Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter yanked Toth with more than two minutes to play, but the Huskies refused to bend.
The Rebels will lose a number of players when they return to the ice next fall, including overagers Philp, Helewka and Kayle Doetzel.
Conner Bleackley, DeBrusk and Fleury have also likely seen their last junior game as they prepare to move on to the pro ranks.
Rebels fans stood and saluted their team as the final few seconds rolled off the clock.