Hurricanes beat the Rebels

By Dale Woodard on March 13, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDsports@lethbridgeherald.com

What looked like a potentially long night at the rink for the Lethbridge Hurricanes instead turned out to be a comeback victory and a stats night to boot.

The Canes snagged their first win of the 24-game Western Hockey League season courtesy a 7-4 decision over the Red Deer Rebels Friday night in Red Deer.

The Hurricanes exploded for six unanswered goals after falling behind 4-1 early in the first and backup goaltender Carl Tetachuk took over for starter Bryan Thomson with Lethbridge down 3-1, surrendering a goal early and then kicking out 24 of 25 shots for the win.

Chase Wheatcroft scored twice in the second period for the Hurricanes for the first multi-goal game of his WHL career and Jett Jones also had a two-goal outing.

The Hurricanes also went 3-for-6 on the power play.

With the win, the Hurricanes improve to 1-2-0-0, while the Rebels are now 1-3-1-0 as the team’s continue their weekend series tonight at the Enmax Centre at 6 p.m.

Still, it looked like it could get ugly for the visitors early.

After falling behind early 1-0 on a power play goal from Lethbridge’s Alex Cotton, the Rebels rattled off four unanswered goals — chasing Thomson in the process — for a 4-1 lead by the 8:12 mark of the first.

But the Hurricanes responded with some unanswered markers of their own, tying the game at 4-4 before the first period was over before Chase Wheatcroft added two more for Lethbridge in the second for his first multi-goal WHL game and a 6-4 lead after 40 minutes.

In addition to Wheatcroft’s first multi-goal game, rookie Reid MacKay added an assist for his first WHL career point.

The Hurricanes got the first power play of the night and grabbed a 1-0 lead on a goal Cotton 2:37 after the opening faceoff.

The Rebels responded quickly and it didn’t take them long to grab the lead as Ethan Rowland deadlocked the score 1:02 after Cotton’s snipe and Arshdeep Bains gave Red Deer a 2-1 4:46 into the first.

The Rebels continued to find the back of the net and chased Thomson as Carter Anderson made it 3-1 on Red Deer’s fourth shot for his first career WHL goal.

That pressed Tetachuk into action, but the Rebels continued to build their lead as Zak Smith paced his team to a 4-1 lead 8:12 into the game.

The Hurricanes cut the lead in half with their second power play goal with 5:44 left in the first when Zack Stringer converted a feed from Alex Thacker to make it 4-2 Red Deer.

With time winding down in the first the visitors pulled within one on a goal from Jones with 2:45 remaining. MacKay drew the assist on the goal.

The Canes completed their first period comeback with 7.4 seconds left in the first and newest Hurricane Liam Kindree scored in his debut to make it 4-4 after 20 minutes as the teams combined for eight goals on 20 shots.

It didn’t take long for the goals theme to continue in the second period and the Hurricanes re-took the lead as Wheatcroft netted his first of the season for a 5-4 lead 34 seconds into the middle stanza.

Unlike the first period, the second remained mostly scoreless before the Hurricanes power play struck for a third time and Wheatcroft added his second of the game and a 6-4 Lethbridge lead after 40 minutes.

Jones rounded out the scoring with the only marker of the third with 2:06 remaining.

Stringer added an assist for a two-point night, while captain Dino Kambeitz, Thacker, Ty Nash and Justin Hall each had two assists.

Chase Leslie had two assists for the Rebels

The Rebels outshot the Hurricanes 30-29.

Rebels goaltender Ethan Anders kicked out 22 of 29 shots.

The teams wrap up their three-game weekend Sunday in Red Deer at 6 p.m.

In other WHL action Friday night, the Medicine Hat Tigers downed the Calgary Hitmen 6-2 in Calgary.

Meanwhile at the Brandt Centre in Regina, the East Division teams got this going in the bubble as the Moose Jaw Warriors edged the Brandon Wheat Kings 4-3. Lethbridge’s Ridly Greig had an assist for the Wheat Kings in the loss.

In the second game, the Prince Albert Raiders doubled the Regina Pats as Pats 2020 first-overall draft pick Connor Bedard — granted exceptional player status to play in the WHL as a 15-year-old — scored twice in his WHL debut.

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