After allowing two goals on ten opportunities over their last two games, the Red Deer Rebels were looking to improve on the penalty kill heading into action with the Calgary Hitmen.
The special teams played a big factor for the Rebels, who picked up the 4-3 victory at the Enmax Centrium.
Both teams were looking their first win of the season and special teams would play a factor in the decision on this night.
Calgary opened the scoring early, Zach Huber scored a goal on the stick side of Ethan Anders. He received a pass from behind the net and it was perfectly placed in the slot to allow him the time to give his squad the lead.
Red Deer answered back a few moments later. Jacob Herauf scored his first goal of the year, which was also the first goal by a player who wasn’t born in Russia for the Rebels. The play started deep in the Hitmen end and made its way to the point by Brandon Hagel. The shot fooled everyone and slipped past Carl Stankowski to tie the game at one.
Red Deer earned their first lead of the season on a goal from Alexander Alexeyev. His third goal came on the power play. Some passing down low by the Rebels forwards allowed Alexeyev to sneak in off the point to below the hashmarks and he ripped the puck behind Stankowski.
We've got the debut of Josh Prokop live in Red Deer. The @WHLHitmen take on @Rebelshockey at the top of the hour. pic.twitter.com/KAD2PIzV5K
— DUBNetwork (@dub_network) September 29, 2018
Making his Western Hockey League debut with the Hitmen was forward Josh Prokop. Despite not registering a point, he made his presence felt with a few quality shot chances in the middle part of the second period. His brother, Luke, is in his second tour of duty with the team after seeing action in 14 games last season.
Before the period was out, the Hitmen and Rebels exchanged goals just 27 seconds apart. Layne Toder tied the game on a weak looking shot from the half wall. The shot handcuffed Anders and made it by him on the short side.
Mere moments later, a three-on-two developed where Oleg Zaytsev made a pass to an open Jeff de Wit streaking down the wing. de Wit’s low wrist shot fooled Stankowski, beating him stick side, just inside the far post to retake the lead for the Rebels heading into the second intermission.
The game winner came 49 seconds into the third period. A Hitmen defenseman made and errant play and the puck wound up on the stick of Alex Morozoff. He made a quick pass to Brandon Hagel who was in the high slot. His laser beam of a shot beat Stankowski to put the Rebels up 4-2.
Hagel was asked about the chemistry he is developing with his linemates, Jeff de Wit and Oleg Zaytsev, “It’s really good, I’m mean Oleg doesn’t speak much English, but we are really good friends off the ice. Jeff de Wit he is one of my best buddies as well so I mean thats really really gonna help when a line can be best friends on and off the ice.”
Third period nearly turns disastrous
The Hitmen though were not done in this game by any stretch.
Calgary poured it on after the fourth Red Deer goal. They outshot the Rebels 18-7 in the final frame.
Hunter Campbell scored his first of the season with more than 13 minutes to go in the game. This set the stage for an exciting end to a pretty entertaining game.
Penalties nearly spelled the way to a tie game. Red Deer took consecutive penalties after the midway point of the period and relied on an excellent group of penalty killers to get the job done.
The group of players Head Coach Brent Sutter sent out to kill off the penalties fought for pucks and won battles, dumped the puck at the right time and spent a great deal of time in the Hitmen end ragging the puck around and making good passes at the right times.
Brandon Hagel was happy with his team’s performance on the penalty kill, “Everyone stuck to the systems and when you are gonna do that it’s gonna work. If we can just do that it’s always good.”
“Down the stretch those two penalty kills were huge for us, you can say one call was questionable, the other was 200-feet from our net that we can’t take. We did a good job killing them off.” added head coach and general manager Brent Sutter after the win
The game was nearly in hand when a poor play almost cost the Rebels yet again. With 13.6 seconds on the clock, de Wit hammered a shot toward the empty Calgary net. Problem was, he hadn’t reached centre ice. The shot missed and the tired group of players had to take the icing call and stay on the ice. Thankfully, the Hitmen thought too much time had come off the clock and so it was reset to 14.3 seconds. What this did though was give the Rebels a little gift of a break and they were able to stave off the last ditch effort of the Hitmen to win the game.
