By Erik Buddingh

From the stands it almost looked like Red Deer had an extra man on the ice the whole game. Though Briercrest fought hard, staying united as a team and showing class, a disproportionate glut of penalties against Briercrest, which resulted in four power play goals for Red Deer, proved to be decisive in the outcome of the game. In spite of the final score, Briercrest was thrilled to welcome Swedish sensation Joachim Hanberg back to the line-up after recovering from surgery he underwent earlier in the season. Micah Abbott also played an exceptional game on defense winning puck battles and creating offensive opportunities for his teammates.

Eleven penalties were called in the first period, seven of them against Briercrest. Because of this, Red Deer was able to capitalize on three chances and gain momentum, which carried through the rest of the game.

The second period was more of the same. Once again, Briercrest regularly found itself on the penalty kill and despite aggressive and tenacious play surrendered two goals to Red Deer. With special teams being a consistent theme throughout the game, Briercrest’s Ricky Seidel scored on the power-play at 14:34 assisted by #3 Josh Dufresne and #17 Manuel Schellenberg, who continued his point streak.

In the third period, Briercrest successfully killed off all four of the penalties called against them. In spite of their excellent penalty killing and several tireless individual performances, Red Deer scored two times in the third period.

Briercrest player of the games was Manny Schellenberg who had an assist on the lone Briercrest goal.

Briercrest will host Concordia next weekend for their last home games of the season. Friday, February 21 game will have a puck drop at 7:00 pm. You will be able to see a live stream at www.sportscanada.tv or find updates on the Briercrest Hockey Facebook page and onBriercrest Hockey’s Twitter.