The Red Deer Rebels displayed seamless teamwork from beginning to end, narrowly defeating the Calgary Hitmen 2-1 in a shootout victory on Friday night at the Centrium.
Derek Thurston tallied the Rebels’ only goal during regulation, while Matthew Gard and Ty Coupland each found the back of the net in the shootout. Chase Wutzke delivered an outstanding performance in goal, halting the Hitmen’s five-game winning streak. With Friday’s triumph, Red Deer secured their fourth win over Calgary this season. The rivals are set to face off two more times before the regular season concludes
Shots on goal in a scoreless first period were 6 each
16 year old Lethbridge native Rylan Ng scored for the Hitmen to make it a 1-0 game at 6:34 of the second period. The assists on the goal went to former Moose Jaw Warrior Kalem Parker and David Adaszynski.
Derek Thurston tied the game up with his 9th goal of the season at 15:09 of the second period. The assists on the goal went to Luke Vlooswyk and Gleb Semenov. Thurston shot that from almost centre Ice🤣🤣🤣
Shots on goal in the second period were 14-13 for the Rebels
Shots on goal in the third period were 14-1 for the Rebels
Shots in overtime were 2-1 for the Rebels. The Rebels outshot the Hitmen 37-21 in the game.
| Hitmen | Ben Kindel | ✔️ | Rebels | Beckett Hamilton | ✖️ |
| Hitmen | Oliver Tulk | ✖️ | Rebels | Matthew Gard | ✔️ |
| Hitmen | Tanner Howe | ✖️ | Rebels | Ty Coupland | ✔️ |
Chase Wutzke made 20 saves on the 21 shots that he faced for the win for the Rebels. For the Hitmen Anchorage, Alaska native Anders Miller made 35 saves on the 36 shots that he faced.
Three Stars of the game were 1) Anders Miller 2) Derek Thurston 3) Chase Wutzke
Attendance in Red Deer was 3811
Rebels next game is Saturday March 1st against the Rhett Stoesser and the Kelowna Rockets in Red Deer. And the Rockets played last night in Prince George. They could be a tad tired.
Steven Ellis – Daily Faceoff – January 16th: “Kindel is a dual-threat offensive player. He’s equally good as a shooter and a playmaker and is the driving force of Calgary’s attack. Kindel does a great job of finding open space and exploiting it and he has a shot he can unleash from just about anywhere.”