Wutzke stands tall again as Rebels edge Hitmen in shootout
Rebels 3 Hitmen 2 (SO)
CALGARY — Red Deer Rebels head coach Derrick Walser felt Santa showed up well ahead of his normal arrival.
“We got an early Christmas present,” he noted, following the Rebels’ 3-2 shootout win over the Calgary Hitmen in a WHL contest Wednesday at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“We weren’t very good at all, I didn’t like our game,” he said. “We didn’t compete, we didn’t battle. It was one of those games you throw away, forget about it and move forward.
“Thank God our goalie bailed us out tonight.”
Reigning WHL Goaltender of the Week Chase Wutzke made 33 saves through 65 minutes and then denied all three Hitmen players he faced in the shootout, which saw Jhett Larson score the lone goal in the skills competition.
“He’s playing with a lot of confidence and giving us a chance to win,” said Walser. “You get away with a win. That’s one of those games once a year where you bury it and try and reset and get back on your toes.
“We played slow and when you play slow . . . we just didn’t look good. We just didn’t play the right way, how we’ve been playing the last month or so.”
The Rebels never trailed in the contest after opening the scoring 2:51 into the contest when defenceman Jace Weir carried the puck low and fed a cross-crease pass to Matthew Gard, who tipped it home while going hard to the net. It was Gard’s fourth goal of the season.
That Weir 👉 Gard connection 🔥 pic.twitter.com/RAo8OvJTYN
— Red Deer Rebels (@Rebelshockey) December 14, 2023
The Hitmen pulled even just over eight minutes later as Ethan Moore raced down the right side and from the bottom of the circle beat Wutzke high to the glove side.
Rebels captain Kai Uchacz, however, restored the visitors’ lead at the 14:25 mark of the opening frame. Larson kept the play alive at the Hitmen blueline and passed across to Uchacz, whose shot from the top of the right circle caught the far corner past goaltender Ethan Buenaventura.
Absolutely RIPPED home! pic.twitter.com/rzeoVQ21tG
— Red Deer Rebels (@Rebelshockey) December 14, 2023
The score held until Wutzke fanned on an attempted relay to a Rebels defenceman that led to Brandon Gorzynski’s first WHL goal just under two minutes into the third period.
The game remained tied through the remainder of regulation time and the five-minute extra frame, during which the Rebels killed off a penalty for too many men, before Larson notched the lone shootout goal.
“We looked slow tonight but we’ll take the two points and move on, that’s how I address it,” said Walser. “Our goalie bailed us out and we all have to be better, including the coaches. We have to be on our toes and we have to be better tomorrow.”
The Rebels bench boss was referring to Thursday’s 7 p.m. match with the Swift Current Broncos at the Peavey Mart Centrium. With Wednesday’s win, the Rebels moved into a sixth-place Eastern Conference tie with the Broncos.
“We’ll take it one game at a time,” said Walser, whose 15-12-0-3 club will also host the Regina Pats Saturday before the Christmas break. “The way we started the year we had to creep our way back into it, get to .500 and then one game above, that was our first goal.
“Our plan now is to move on to the next game against Swift Current and be a lot more aggressive.”
Notable: The three stars: (1) Gorznyksi, (2) Gard and (3) Wutzke, who counted a great glove stab on Keets Fawcett among his 33 saves . . . Buenaventura made 30 saves in the Calgary net . . . Red Deer was zero-for-four on the power play, Calgary zero-for-three . . . Red Deer was without top-six forwards Kalan Lind (upper body, day-to-day), and Carson Latimer (lower body, indefinite) and rookie forward Jeramiah Roberts (upper body, day-to-day) . . . The Rebels will host the Medicine Hat Tigers Dec. 27 in their first game out of the Christmas break, and will then visit the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Swift Current Dec. 29 and 30.
