One team was very happy with their weekend, the other less so.
The Edmonton Oil Kings got off on the right foot this weekend, scoring 4-2 and 4-1 victories over the Red
Deer Rebels.
It was recent returnee Trey Fix-Wolansky’s efforts that brought the Oil Kings four early points as he had three assists in the home opener for Edmonton. In last night’s action he scored once and added an assist for a five point weekend.
He is just one of five players to score five or more points over the opening weekend of the WHL season.
Overage forward Vince Loschiavo also had a very impressive weekend scoring three times and adding an assist.
The Rebels were beneficiaries of some excellent goaltending despite the two losses, “Andy (Ethan Anders) played well, I thought he played solid. Last night he was exceptional and tonight he was very good again” head coach Brent Sutter added after last night’s game.
“We have to have goaltending, any team does and yet it’s something that we know we have an 18 and a 17-year-old goaltender and Andy’s our starter.”
With the two losses, Anders was pulled in both games for an extra attacker with a few moments left to try to even things up. He recorded a 3.09 goals against average and a very good .921 save percentage.
“Next weekend we are gonna need Fancy to play in a game cause we are playing four games in five nights so he is gonna get a shot to get in next weekend.”
Edmonton used Boston Bilous in the home opener, he played well only allow two goals on 22 shots. Recently added Dylan Myskiw faced a few more Rebels shots making 28 saves on 29 shots.
Tempered expectations
The Rebels expectations heading into the season were tempered, the team has a lot of young inexperienced forwards on its roster, “The goals they got were just some hockey sense plays there were coverages we need to be better at. We said its a process, we have a lot of work to do with these young kids. You get caught up in some of it too much and not realizing where the youth is.”
While head coach Brent Sutter wasn’t upset with his team’s performance over the weekend, he was more happy with his charges efforts on Saturday night compared to Friday on the road.
“I thought Jeff (de Wit) was good tonight. I thought the line was good. One thing everyone has to remember is Zets (Oleg Zaytsev) is a 17-year-old hockey player. He’s playing against everyone’s top centremen every night. There is a learning curve for him a little bit too.” said head coach Brent Sutter. The emphasis was on the youth throughout the lineup, especially on offense.
Speaking of Zaytsev, he and Alexander Alexeyev are the only Rebels goal scorers on the season. Zaytsev had an excellent short handed goal on Friday night in Edmonton. Alexeyev was a force on the blueline, scoring twice from the point.
Dallon Melin, recently acquired from the Victoria Royals, drew in for his first game as a rookie. While he didn’t earn a lot of ice time, his presence was felt when he made a few body checks with his 6-foot-3, 195 pound frame.
Rebel Yell… Over the weekend the Rebels power play was just one-for-six while the penalty kill was eight-of-ten. Edmonton out shot Red Deer in both games, 43-22 on Friday night and 35-29 on Saturday. This was the first time since the 2016-17 season that Red Deer lost both games of the season opening home-and-home series with Edmonton. They would go on to win their next game in that season on the road in Moose Jaw. Red Deer will play four of the next five games at home. Their next game they play host to the Calgary Hitmen on Friday September 28th.
