Tigers 6 Rebels 2

The wheels fell off for the Red Deer Rebels in the third period on the road against the Medicine Hat Tigers.

Medicine Hat handed Red Deer its third straight loss Wednesday, on the strength of four unanswered third-period goals.

The Tigers picked up a 6-2 win, in a game that was tied 2-2 after 40 minutes. Red Deer was also outshot 21-6 in the final period of the game.

“Turnovers, too may odd man rushes against. Not good defensively. We didn’t play well enough in the third to even be close,” said a frustrated Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter.

“I thought some individuals were solid and some weren’t as good as they needed to be. We needed to have everyone with their game where it needed to be in the third and we didn’t have that.”

Ryan Jevne notched a hat trick for the home side and was first star, while import netminder Mads Sogaard made 21 saves for his second straight win against the Rebels.

Jevne opened the scoring early in the second period with a hard shot high glove past Rebels rookie goalie Byron Fancy.

Rebels forward Zak Smith tied the game on a nice drive wide when he tucked a shot past Sogaard. Smith’s fifth of the season tied the game at one and Ryan Gottfried also recorded his first WHL point on the goal.

Zak Smith crashes the net and chips the puck over Søgaard to knot this game up at 1-1.

— Ryan McCracken (@MHNMcCracken) November 29, 2018

Just 63 seconds later, Ryan Chyzowski scored for the Tigers to restore the one-goal lead.

Midway through the second, Jeff de Wit notched his 17th goal of the campaign right off a faceoff, to erase the deficit again for Red Deer.

In the third, it was all Tigers.

Tyler Longo buried under two minutes into the frame and Tigers captain James Hamblin added a tally at 7:48.

Jevne notched his second of the night on the power play just past the midway point of the period and finished off the hat trick with 1:17 to play.

“You’re on the road tied, it’s a good place to be. Gave up three odd man rushes in the first eight or nine minutes and two of them were in your net,” Sutter said.

Fancy finished the game with 41 saves on 47 shots.

Red Deer also played for the second straight game without star defenceman Alex Alexeyev, who is still day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Sutter added the blame defensively over the last four games, when the Rebels have given up 17 goals, is spread across the lineup.

“You have no success if you’re not going to defend the right way,” Sutter said.

“It’s everybody. It’s as much of the forwards responsibility as it is the defence, probably even more so.”

The Rebels are back on home ice Friday when they host the Calgary Hitmen and Saturday they will also welcome the Moose Jaw Warriors to the Centrium.

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Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
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