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Pats shoot down Rebels

Despite their losing record, these Pats are clearly no patsies.
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Red Deer Rebel John Persson battles for position in front of Regina Pat goalie Matt Hewitt with defenceman Art Bidvelski at the Centrium Friday night. The Pats won 2-1 in a shootout.

Pats 2 Rebels 1 (SO)

Despite their losing record, these Pats are clearly no patsies.

Of course, the Red Deer Rebels had to know that after losing to the visiting Regina Pats in a Western Hockey League shootout Dec. 11.

If not, they were reminded of the fact Friday at the Centrium, falling 2-1 to the visitors in, yes, another shootout before 5,098 fans.

“There are no easy games in this league,” said Rebels defenceman Justin Weller. “They (Pats) might be near the bottom of the standings but we can’t take them lightly, and I don’t really think that we did that tonight.”

The Rebels certainly had their opportunities, firing 41 shots at Regina netminder Matt Hewitt, but on this night they were the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

For every shot that struck Hewitt, the hosts missed the net with another volley. They narrowly missed on several occasions, but the misfires cost them in the end.

“That was a tough one,” said Weller.

“We had over 40 shots tonight and just one goal, and that’s kind of unacceptable. We have to make sure we bear down around the net when we get chances.”

The clubs battled through a listless and scoreless opening period before the Pats struck late in the second stanza, Tanner Olstad breaking to the net and deflecting Garrett Mitchell’s corner pass past Rebels goalie Darcy Kuemper.

The Rebels finally got the equalizer during a third-period power play. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, from the half wall, was the architect, sending a pass to Byron Froese who one-timed the feed into the top of the net from the high slot.

Froese was assessed an elbowing major with four minutes remaining in the third period, but the Red Deer penalty kill erased the disadvantage which stretched into the second minute of overtime.

The extra five-minute session solved nothing and brought up a marathon shootout in which Hewitt allowed a goal to the first Red Deer shooter, Nugent-Hopkins, but stopped the next nine attempts.

Kuemper also stood his ground after giving up an early goal to Jordan Weal, but Shane Neigum slipped the puck through his pads as the 10th Regina shooter and the visitors had their fourth straight win.

On a night when the Rebels had trouble completing passes and continually firing high and wide of the Regina net, head coach/VP of hockey operations Jesse Wallin was not impressed.

“We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t do enough to win the hockey game,” said Wallin. “A big part of it was we didn’t bear down on our opportunities. We had a lot of shots that missed the net and 100 per cent of shots that miss have no chance of going in.

“We also didn’t play with enough desperation, especially in the first two periods. We generated opportunities but we tried to be too cute at times.”

Wallin was impressed with Hewitt, although he felt the Rebels could have made the evening a little more difficult for the Regina stopper.

“Their goalie played well. It was tough to score on that first shot and we didn’t get enough second and third opportunities,” he said.

“With the talent we have in this dressing room we should have scored enough goals to win tonight, but we just didn’t dig deep enough to get those goals.”

The Rebels take on the Kootenay Ice tonight in Cranbrook.