A hungry Red Deer Rebels team was too much for the Moose Jaw Warriors to handle on Tuesday night at Mosaic Place. Red Deer scored three goals in two minutes in the first period and went on to beat the Warriors, 7-3.

"Our play through the lineup wasn't very good, starting from the goaltending out, but it's a good wake-up call for us," said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter after the game.

The Warriors had won three straight games over the weekend, but Hunter said they weren't ready to play against a desperate team like the Rebels, who entered Tuesday night riding a five-game losing skid.

"It was a bit of a wake-up call after playing three games against teams that aren't in the playoff picture, so it gets us back in that mode," said Hunter. "When we did push back, I thought we did okay, but I knew that team was going to be desperate because they're on the outside looking in and I'm sure their coach was breathing down their necks."

The Rebels came out banging-and-crashing with a hard, physical game early in the first period, which got Moose Jaw on their heels.

Red Deer scored the game's first goal at 10:28 when Reese Johnson put the puck in on a goal-mouth scramble. Less than a minute later, Brandon Hagel deflected a point shot to make it 2-0, and then two minutes from their first goal, Chris Douglas extended the Rebels lead.

"We haven't had real good starts lately and that doesn't pay off in the second and third periods," said Warriors forward Luke Ormsby, who had a goal and two points in the loss.

"We could have played better, but it's something to learn from, those losses are never easy with nine games to go before playoffs, that's kind of a kick in the face and a wake-up call for the group and it's important that we learn from it now and get ready to go."

Reece Johnson scores one of Red Deer's three first-period goals during Tuesday's win over the Warriors at Mosaic Place. (Photo: Marc Smith)

After killing off a penalty at the start of the second period, the Warriors went on the power-play and were able to attack the Red Deer net. Moose Jaw was able to collapse on goalie Ethan Anders and force a goal-mouth scramble, Jett Woo came down from the blue-line, grabbed a loose puck and threw it to the back of the net to get the Warriors on the board.

The Warriors continued to press and had chances to get closer on the scoreboard but they weren't able to convert.

Instead, the Rebels stole momentum back with a goal from Josh Tarzwell to go back up by three. They went up 5-1 at 9:20 on another goal from Chris Douglas, and then on a two-man advantage, Red Deer bounced a puck off a Warriors defenceman to extend their lead to five.

Moose Jaw didn't quit and was able to create some opportunities in the back half of the period.

On the penalty kill, Justin Almeida led a rush out of the Warriors zone with five and a half minutes left in the period, he skated to the Rebels left circle and then lifted the puck to the middle of the ice where Ormsby knocked in his seventh of the season, shorthanded, to make it 6-2.

In the third period, the Rebels picked up an empty net goal from Brandon Hagel while the Warriors got a late goal from Carson Denomie to end the night.

Ormsby led the Warriors with a goal and two points, while Hagel paced the Rebels with two goals and five points.

Ormsby said this loss came down to their start and they need to be better in that area, "It all starts in warm-up and that's something that's crept into our game is crummy warm-ups and that leads right into the start," he said.

Starting with the puck was also an issue in the loss for the Warriors as Red Deer dominated the face-off circle, winning 42 of 66 draws during the game.

"They're one of the best face-off teams in the Western Hockey League. They've got right and left centres, and our right centres weren't doing much and neither were our left centres, so we were behind the eight-ball and that's something we're going to have dig in and work on," said Hunter. "We weren't even getting 50/50 pucks off face-offs, we were getting clean losses and then they were having full possession, so you're chasing the puck and we were chasing all game."

After a busy stretch of four games in five days, the Warriors are now off until the weekend when they're back at Mosaic Place on Friday to take on Lethbridge and then on Saturday against Prince Albert. Tickets are available online at mjwarriors.ca.