REGINA- The wheels fell off for the Red Deer Rebels in the third period Sunday afternoon in a 6-1 loss to the Regina Pats.
Regina took the game over in the final frame – out shot Red Deer 21-2 and outscored them 4-0 to close out a decisive victory in WHL action.
Red Deer was within striking distance near the end of the second period when Mason McCarty scored on the power play for his fifth goal and 10th point of the season to make it 2-1.
From there, the Pats, with NHL draft picks Josh Mahura and Sam Steel stepping back into the lineup was too much to handle for the Rebels in their third contest in the last three nights.
“These last two games we weren’t good in the third period,” Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter said of both Saturday’s loss and on Sunday.
“There were just some bad mistakes made. Losing coverage and playing soft.”
Pats CHL Import draft pick Emil Oksanen scored the opening two goals for Regina before they broke it open in the third.
He added the hat trick marker early in the third, before Pats forward Bryce Platt notched a goal just over a minute later to extend the lead to 4-1.
Former Rebels defenceman Mahura added a power play goal on a point shot in the third. Steel finished the game with three assists.
Rebels goalie Lasse Petersen finished the game with 32 saves. Red Deer was one for seven on the power play in the loss.
Defenceman Alex Alexeyev missed his second game with an upper body injury.
The Rebels also lost 4-2 on Saturday night to the Moose Jaw Warriors and allowed 14 goals in their three game road trip. Sutter added that defensively, they’ll need to clean things up going forward.
“Probably the best two periods we played all weekend were (Sunday). When get two out of six points you can’t be very happy about it,” Sutter said.
Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter