Weekend Wraps With Win
The Red Deer Rebels went 1-1 during their first 2 games of a 4 game Saskatchewan road trip.
The Blades fell 4-3 in a shootout on Saturday night to the Red Deer Rebels after Red Deer tied the game with just over a minute left to get it to overtime.
Saskatoon got off to a strong start in the game, opening the scoring at 3:23 as Brent Benson scored his 11th of the season. That was all the scoring in the period as the Rebels outshot Saskatoon 11-9 through 20 minutes.
Red Deer would ahve better luck in the second period. John Persson cut through the slot and buried a shot high past Makarov at 4:16 to even it at one. Seven minutes later the Rebels would take their first lead of the game as Brooks Maxwell got his 5th of the season, firing a shot off the far post while going the other way.
But, the Blades tied it up before the period wound down as Dalton Thrower pinched into the play and chipped a puck in after Josh Nicholls had been stopped by Deven Dubyk on a breakaway. The two teams would take the 2-2 game into the final frame.
In that final period it was the Blades pushing first with Jake Trask counting on the powerplay only 2:45 into the frame. The goal came after a point shot’s rebound snuck out to the side of the net right to Trask.
The game looked to be well in hand, especially after an amazing glove save by Andrey Makarov with only 3:04 left to play. The save came off of former Blade Charles Inglis, who wired the wrister from the high slot, only to have Makarov do the splits and flash the left-hand leather.
But the win was not to be for Saskatoon. With 1:15 to play, Mathew Dumba sent a rocket stretch pass to Persson at the offensive blueline, he then broke in all alone and scored to even it at three.
Nobody scored in the overtime despite some nice open ice as the teams played 4 on 4 and the teams combined for 5 shots on goal.
In the shootout neither team could score as Trask, Nicholls and Stransky were stopped for Saskatoon and Inglis and Persson were both stopped for Red Deer. Up stepped Florida Panthers draft pick Alex Petrovic with the game on his stick. He came in all alone and beat Makarov as the Rebels earned two big points with the win.
Makarov was the first star of the game after a 44 save performance.
