As the regular season wrapped up Saturday night, the Nelson Leafs lost against the Castlegar Rebels 5-0.
Despite coming out strong in the first half of the first period, the Leafs lost momentum as they played the first place Rebels for the second time in two nights.
Castlegar opened scoring early on with Diego Bartlett making it 1-0 28 seconds into the game. He would go on to score again on the power play midway through the second period.
The Rebels would capitalize on the power play again late in the second to make it 3-0. Bryan Lubin scored with 1:51 left in the period.
Early in the third, Stuart Walton made it 4-0 and Braydon Horcoff scored again for the Rebels with 14:06 left in play.
It was a tough loss for the Leafs as their coach Frank Maida was named Neil Murdoch coach of the year Saturday night.
With the first game in the home-and-home series played on Friday in Castlegar, the Leafs were downed 3-2.
Castlegar were up 3-0 by the time the Leafs got on the board with a goal from Dustin Reimer assisted by Bryce Nielsen and Colton Schell with 4:33 left in the second period.
In the third, a power play goal by Connor Gross from Carson Willans got the Nelson team within one but they couldn’t take the game.
The playoffs begin this week with the Rebels finishing first in the league. Beaver Valley Nitehawks won both their games against Spokane in a home-and-home this weekend putting them in second place giving them home ice advantage.