Rebels edge Wheat Kings 5-3

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The Brandon Wheat Kings nearly clawed back from a three-goal deficit in the third period but ultimately fell 5-3 to the Red Deer Rebels in Western Hockey League action at Peavey Mart Centrium on Saturday.

Kai Uchacz had a pair of late goals and Evan Smith, Jhett Larson and Carson Birnie also sniped for Red Deer (27-13-1-4), while Nolan Flamand, Rylen Roersma and Brett Hyland replied for Brandon (22-18-4-1) in front of a crowd of 5,008.

With the win, the surging Rebels have earned at least a point in 12 straight games and jumped past the Moose Jaw Warriors into third place in the Eastern Conference. The Wheat Kings remain in fifth place, one point ahead of the Swift Current Broncos and two up on the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

Brandon, which has lost three games in a row, faces the Edmonton Oil Kings on Sunday afternoon at 5 o’clock (CT) to complete its three-in-three Alberta road trip. 

Brandon general manager and head coach Marty Murray said it was a good effort by his club, especially one night after an 8-0 shellacking at the hands of the Calgary Hitmen.

“I think we deserved better, to be honest,” Murray said. “We had a lot of really good looks in the second period we couldn’t score, and I don’t like the third goal (by Red Deer). I thought it was goalie interference and shouldn’t have counted. That puts us down 3-0 instead of 2-0. To our credit, I thought we showed a lot of character in the third period.”

Brandon had an early power play and absolutely swarmed in the Red Deer zone, but Rebels goalie Chase Wutzke made his best early save with his pad on a backdoor feed to Jayden Wiens.

After the early pressure subsided, the ice began to tilt in the other direction.

Brandon was fortunate to have the game remain tied 12 minutes into the first period as their first penalty ended. Travis Brigley was set up in the slot — similar to the way the Calgary Hitmen scored their first two goals a night earlier — but the puck hit the post and bounced straight out, where Brandon goalie Ethan Eskit jumped on it.

A couple of minutes later, defenceman Mats Lindgren skated out front with the puck, and when it was knocked off his stick and bounced toward the net, Smith fought off a Brandon defender to deposit the puck in the top of the net.

The Rebels extended the lead on the power play before the period ended. 

After two shot blocks by Brandon penalty killers, the Rebels moved the puck around and Larsen sent a laser into the top corner over Eskit’s blocker.

It was all Rebels in the first five minutes of the second period, as they built a quick 8-1 edge in shots and an overwhelming territorial advantage. Brandon gradually began to press back but Red Deer came back up the ice 14:05 into the second period on a two-on-one

Eskit seemed to have control of the initial shot but Birnie charged at the net and banged away at Eskit until the puck trickled between his legs over the goal-line. Despite protestations for the Brandon bench and a brief review, the goal counted.

“To me, it’s so clear that it’s goalie interference,” Murray said. “The puck is underneath him, the puck is not visible, he pushes twice, our goalie’s left pad goes back into the net, he gets twisted around. It’s just stuff you see that is 100 per cent goalie interference. It was really, really frustrating because that was a big part of the game.”

Late in the period, the Wheat Kings buzzed on their second power play — they had the puck in the Red Deer zone for virtually the entire two minutes — but didn’t score.

The momentum took a decided turn in Brandon’s direction in the back half of the third period.

Brandon finally broke a 141-minute, 25-second stretch without a goal — dating back to the second period of a 7-3 loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers — when Flamand deflected a shot by defenceman Andrei Maliavan on the power play. 

“I thought we really generated a lot on the looks we had,” Murray said. “We had a couple of really good looks in the first in our first power play and in the second we were all over it too. Baby steps: I thought we created some momentum off that and finally got one in the third.”

Just 88 seconds later, Roersma won a forechecking battle deep in the Red Deer zone, cut back to the net and fired a shot over Wutzke’s shoulder to pull the visitors back within a goal at 3-2.

The Rebels restored the two-goal lead on a fortuitous hometown bounce. Larson fired the puck off the glass to clear his zone and it hit a stanchion and dropped in the neutral zone for Uchacz, who went in on a breakaway and scored with 4:45 remaining.

Brandon pulled Eskit with three minutes remaining for the extra attacker, and the Wheat Kings capitalized with 2:34 left when Hyland converted on a pass to the net front by Roger McQueen.

With Brandon pressing, Red Deer cleared its zone and Uchacz scored his second goal with 78 seconds remaining when he backhanded a shot into the empty net from his own side of centre ice.

Murray said it was nice for his group’s confidence to have a strong third period.

“I think it could be big,” Murray said. “You could see they were pretty deflated after the third period against Medicine Hat and getting shut out by Calgary and then two periods here. You could see we were a little deflated because we had a lot of chances in the second and just couldn’t buy one. It was like there was a piece of plexiglass around the net.

“We were able to chip away and you could see the excitement. The message after the game was that we’re never happy when we lose but let’s build off the things we accomplished here in the third and start like that tomorrow.”

ICINGS: Brandon skated without G Carson Bjarnason (lower body, week to week), D Quinn Mantei (lower body, day to day) and F Matt Henry (fourth game of eight-game suspension) … Eskit made 36 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Wutzke stopping 27 shots for the Rebels … Brandon went 1-for-3 on the power play, with Red Deer scoring once in four chances … Hyland led the Wheat Kings with nine shots on net … The game took two hours, 28 minutes to play … Red Deer dominated the faceoff circle, winning 43-22 … The crowd was the third largest Brandon has played in front of this season, with the Saskatoon Blades drawing 7,511 fans on Jan. 1 and the Spokane Chiefs pulling in 5,127 on Oct. 14.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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