Myskiw picks up first win as a Wheat King

The Brandon Wheat Kings came into Red Deer following last night’s 7-3 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings with high hopes of avenging a shoot out loss to the Rebels just one week ago at home.

Dylan Myskiw

Dylan Myskiw was up to the task, stopping 37 of 39 Red Deer shots. In his second appearance of the season, Myskiw was rewarded with his first Wheat King win. The Wheat Kings improved to 3-2-0-1 on the season.

The early part of the game was marred with turnovers, offsides and icing calls as neither team could keep control of the puck or make any kind of progress. The play was very sloppy, defenders could not make break out passes on either side.

19-year-old Gunnar Wegleitner would open the scoring for the Wheat Kings, picking up his second goal in five games. Last season with the Victoria Royals, Wegleitner played in 12 games and did not record a point. Ty Lewis and Kade Jensen would pick up the assists.

Another 19-year-old: Reese Johnson, was making his mark on the game by hitting everything in sight. Head coach Brent Sutter added after the game “We didn’t want to play in the tough areas”

The first period would end with the Wheat Kings out front 1-0, shots were 11-7 Brandon.

Brandon Wheat Kings defenseman Kale Clague would notch his first of two goals on the night just 6:22 into the second period. The entire game was played well by Clague, who would go on to be the game’s first star.

Lane Zablocki would take a two-minute checking from behind penalty that would also result in a 10-minute misconduct. The Wheat Kings would not take long to extend their lead to 3-1. Just 28 seconds into the power play, Stelio Mattheos would score his seventh goal of the season and sixth on the power play. The point shot got by everyone and would spell the end of Lasse Petersen’s evening. He would allow three goals on fifteen shots.

Chris Douglas

Red Deer’s fourth line would come up huge with 3:35 to go in the second period. Chris Douglas would score his first Western Hockey League goal on a slap pass from Ethan Sakowich. The Rebels trailed 3-2.

That would be as close as the Rebels would come and the party would be short lived as the Wheat Kings Kale Clague would score his second of the night, just one minute and 58 seconds later to regain the two goal lead.

The Rebels wouldn’t go without chances in the third period, including 1:08 of 5-on-3 time that produced nothing more than a few missed shots and easily handled chances. “I didn’t think our power play was any good at all.” said Brent Sutter after the game. Sutter would bench the entire power play unit for the next power play, playing entirely 3rd and 4th line guys with the bottom two defense pairing. The Rebels would end the night 0-for-5 on the power play while going 2-for-3 on the penalty kill.

Marcus Sekundiak

Wheat Kings rookie Marcus Sekundiak would salt the game away at the nine minute mark with his first WHL goal.

The Rebels goaltenders would only face 26 shots on this night, allowing five goals in the process “Our goaltending wasn’t very good at all” said head coach Brent Sutter when discussing the play of his team as a whole. “I didn’t think our best players outside of Reichel were any good at all”.

When asked about how the team needed to respond Sutter wanted to talk about results and not just the kind that show up on the score sheet. “Results isn’t just by scoring goals, results are winning battles, getting into tough areas around the net … Results are by blocking shots, I didn’t think there was anything in our  game tonight we can sit and say we were pretty decent here or ok here. We just weren’t very good here tonight.”

The Red Deer Rebels will try to enjoy some Thanksgiving dinner and get back in game action on Tuesday when they face the Everett Silvertips at the Enmax Centrium. Brandon will finish it’s three games in three nights road trip tomorrow afternoon against the Calgary Hitmen. Puck drop for that one is at 4PM at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.

Rebel Yell: Alexander Alexeyev missed his third straight contest with an upper body injury. He is listed as week-to-week. Riley Lamb and Dawson Martin remain shelved for the near future. Defenseman Dawson Barteaux was scratched for undisclosed reasons. Everett will be the first U.S. Division team to visit the Centrium since the Portland Winterhawks were in Red Deer on February 26th, 2016. Tonight’s announced attendance was 4,705.