The Red Deer Rebels' United States road trip got off to a sluggish start, as the squad allowed a combined 12 goals in two games.
On Friday, Nov. 8, the Rebels were bested by the Wenatchee Wild 5-2.
Down 2-0 after the first period, Beckett Hamilton scored his third goal of the season to bring Red Deer back within one four minutes into the middle frame. But the Wild added another pair of goals before the end of the period.
Red Deer forward Carson Birnie scored his sixth of the season a few minutes into the third period, but that's as close as his team got. Wenatchee added an empty-net tally and walked away with the 5-2 victory.
"In the first period I thought we were going well. Even being down, we were still playing hard, skating hard and making good plays. It seemed like every time we created some good offence, their goalie made some good saves and they came down (to the Rebels end) and scored," head coach David Struch said in a post-game video posted on the Rebels social media.
Wenatchee goaltender Daniel Hauser stopped 33 of 35 Rebels shots in the game, while Red Deer's Chase Wutzke stopped 34 of 38.
"I didn't like our penalties. Every time we created some momentum and we had some good things going, we took a bad penalty. Those things hurt us and we started to worry a little bit about stuff after the whistle — trying to chirp with the opposition. We started to get too far from outside of our game. Those aren't things we do naturally," said Struch.
The Wild swept the three stars of the game: Evan Friesen (first), Daniel Hauser (second) and Eastyn Mannix (third).
On Saturday, Nov. 9, the Rebels were overwhelmed in a 7-2 loss to the Tri-City Americans.
Tri-City scored four goals in the opening period, which was too deep a hole for the Rebels to dig themselves out of. Rebels forward Samual Drancak scored Red Deer's first goal in the opening frame — Tri-City scored two of their first-period goals before Drancak's second goal of the season, and two more before the end of the period.
Cohen Poulin brought the Rebels within two 17 minutes into the second period. But Tri-City's Gavin Garland scored less than a minute later too restore his team's three-goal lead. The Americans added two more goals in the third period.
Red Deer's Rhett Stoesser started the game between the pipes, but he was pulled after allowing four goals on 10 shots. Wutzke stopped 15 of the 18 shots he faced through the final two periods. Americans goaltender Nathan Preston stopped 47 of 49 Red Deer shots.
Like in Wenatchee, the home team swept the three stars of the game: Brandon Whynott (first), Nathan Preston (second) and Carter Savage (third).
Red Deer's U.S. road trip continues this week. The Rebels will visit Everett on Nov. 11, Seattle on Nov. 12, Portland on Nov. 15 and Spokane on Nov. 16. The Rebels will return home on Saturday, Nov. 23, to take on the Victoria Royals at the Peavey Mart Centrium.
