The Kootenay Ice were looking for a better start to their hockey games of late and Tuesday night in Red Deer they got it early. Really early. Fourteen seconds into the game early.

Now it’s their middle and end they have to worry about. That 2-0 Kootenay lead evaporated in the second period with four straight Rebels’ goals, giving Red Deer the 4-2 win.

“The first couple of minutes we were all over them and maybe we thought it looked like it was going to be an easy one for us,” said Ice assistant coach Kris Knoblauch via phone after the game. “We took that penalty, then they scored on the power play and it totally changed the game around. It seemed to give them all the momentum.”

The Ice opened the scoring off the opening face-off when Rebel defencemen Alex Petrovic went for a big neutral zone hit and missed, causing an odd-man rush with Dustin Sylvester and Kevin King. Sylvester fed King for his 23rd of the season a 1-0 lead 14 seconds into the game.

Petrovic was the goat again minutes later as the 17-year-old star rearguard took an offensive zone penalty. The Ice made him pay with a shot by D Hayden Rintoul that Steele Boomer got a stick on to make it 2-0.

Rebel head coach Jesse Wallin then called time-out, regrouped and calmed his troops down. For the Ice that’s when the penalty parade started, drawing three straight minors to end the first period. With Matt Fraser in the penalty box, the Rebels cashed in as super rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins notched his 23rd of the season to halve the lead.

Early in the second a turnover at the Rebel blueline became a 3-on-2 for the home team. A pretty give-and-go passing play by Nugent-Hopkins and Willie Coetzee tied the game with Coetzee’s 26th on the year.

With both teams playing four-on-four, D James Martin fell on an Ice rush sending the Rebels back 3-on-1 in the other direction. Goaltender Todd Mathews stopped Landon Ferraro on the initial shot but a feed from behind the net produced another shot, another save and a goal-mouth scramble that Brett Ferguson stuffed in to make it 3-2 for the Rebels.

Ferguson would convert yet another powerplay goal for the Rebels after Mathews couldn’t control the rebound of a David Archer point-shot. Ferguson buried the loose puck, chasing Mathews in favour of Nathan Lieuwen in the process.

Some line-juggling in the third — LW Drew Czweronka was promoted to the second power play unit— failed to generate the offense the club was looking for.

“We were just trying to shuffle them up a little bit and get something going but it also had a lot to do with the penalties we took,” said Knoblauch.

With the zebras heavily involved in this one – the Rebels enjoyed nine power plays while the Ice had six – Kootenay had their chances to get back in this one but couldn’t covert any more than Boomer’s tally in the first period.

Penalties and fatigue finished off any hopes of a comeback.

“Yeah, we were (tired) but that’ll be the last time we use the excuse that we were tired,” said Knoblauch. “We’ve had a long February with not a lot of days off and a lot of travel but four games in five nights, we were a bit tired and it showed.”

Quick Hits – Ice forward Matt Fraser, who missed Saturday’s 2-1 win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes, returned Sunday for the win against the Tigers but continued to play with a full-face shield and will do so for the immediate future. Fraser suffered a black eye in a fight against Spokane’s Bret Bartman that swelled shut and forced a visit to the doctor, which revealed a break in the orbital bone. Fraser is not expected to miss any more time… Fraser’s family hosted the club for a team dinner for the third straight year Monday night in Red Deer… Mathews was pulled in the second, surrendering four goals on 18 shots… King’s opening goal was one second off the team record for fastest goal to start a game, set by Curtis Bilsten in 2006… Both Nugent-Hopkins (goal, two assists) and Archer (three assists) finished with three point games while Kevin King had a goal and an assist… Brock Montgomery (shoulder – 2-3 weeks) and Jagger Dirk (healthy) were scratched for the Ice… Red Deer’s power play was 2-9 while Kootenay went 1-6.