Despite a valiant effort in the final moments, the Red Deer Rebels were ultimately defeated by the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday night. In their first encounter with the league’s newest franchise, formerly known as the Winnipeg Ice, the Rebels suffered a 3-2 loss at the Peavey Mart Centrium.
2008 born Caelen Joudrey a call up from the Airdrie Bison of the Alberta Midget AAA League opened up the scoring for the Wild at 6:47 of the first period with the assists on the goal going to 20 year old Graham Sward and recently acquired Josh Fluker who recently joined the team in the Conor Geekie trade.
Frantisek Formanek scores his 17th goal of the season to tie the game up at 1 at 11:12 of the first period. The assists on the goal went to Samuel Drancak and Matteo Fabrizi.-Frantisek Formanek evened the count just over four minutes later. Matteo Fabrizi fired from the point, Samuel Drancak failed to cash the rebound, but Formanek buried the second save off the pad of goaltender Brendan Gee.
Miles Cooper gave the Wild a 2-1 lead on the Power Play with the assists going to Swan River, Manitoba native Steven Arp and former Youngstown Phantom Japanese native Kenta Isogai.–Miles Cooper restored a lead the visitors never relinquished late in the period — a power play marker — by batting a bouncing puck past Rebels netminder Chase Wutzke.
The Rebels outshot the Wild in the first period 16-12
Shots on goal in the second period were 11-7 for the Wild.
Kenta Isogai made it 3-1 Wild at 3:20 of the third period with the assist on the goal going to Miles Cooper.–the Wild got the eventual winner from Kenta Isogai, who carried the puck through the neutral zone and over the blueline, cut into the low slot and beat Wutzke with a wrist shot at 3:20 of the final frame.
Samuel Drancak scores his 9th goal of the season to get the Rebels within one and make the score 3-2 at 10:47 of the third period. The assists on the goal went to Matthew Gard and Mats Lindgren.–Matthew Gard won a battle in the corner and passed out to Drancak, who made no mistake with a quick release high to Gee’s glove side.
The Rebels outshot the Wild 8-2 in the third period of the game. The Rebels outshot the Wild 31-25 in the game.
18 year old Vancouver native Brendan Gee made 29 saves on the 31 shots the he faced for the win for the Wild. Chase Wutzke made 22 saves on the 25 shots that he faced for the Rebels.
The Three Stars of the game were 1) Kenta Isogai 2) Samuel Drancak 3) Graham Sward
Attendance in Red Deer was 4,539
Rebels next game is Tuesday February 27th in Saskatoon against the Blades.
