Hurricanes double the Rebels
By Dale Woodard on April 10, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDsports@lethbridgeherald.com
It was a change of team and a change of venue — and city for that matter — but the Lethbridge Hurricanes were back on the ice Friday night after a weekend off.
They just had to travel a little further than expected as the Canes defeated the Red Deer Rebels 6-3 in Western Hockey League action Friday night in Red Deer to snap a five-game winless streak and improve to 4-6-2-0.
The Hurricanes were originally scheduled to host the Medicine Hat Tigers at the Enmax Centre Friday night.
But those plans changed at the last minute when a player within the team cohort of the Calgary Hitmen — the team the Tigers played the weekend before — tested positive for COVID-19, suspending both team’s operations.
The Rebels were scheduled to play the Hitmen this weekend.
Instead, it was the Canes and Rebels who re-adjusted their schedules and squared off in Red Deer.
If the last-minute change of plans was supposed to throw the players off their game, someone forgot to tell Hurricanes captain Dino Kambeitz, who scored once and had three assists in the win.
There were other stats nights as well as defenceman Alex Cotton scored twice and had an assist and Trevor Thurston and Alex Thacker scored once and added one helper. Ty Nash had two assists in Friday’s win.
The Hurricanes opened the scoring in the first period as Thurston sniped his first of the season four minutes in for a 1-0 lead after the opening 20 minutes.
Lethbridge’s power play paced them to a 2-0 lead 6:35 into the second period on a goal from another defenceman as Cotton scored his third of the season.
The Canes power play clicked a second time to put them up 3-0 13:22 into the second on Noah Boyko’s third of the season, but the Rebels responded 14 seconds later as Ethan Rowland snuck a shot past Lethbridge goaltender Carl Tetachuk to cut the visitors’ lead to 3-1.
The Hurricanes upped their lead to four in the third period.
Thacker struck for Lethbridge’s third power play goal 1:54 into the third before Kambeitz upped his team’s lead to 5-1 with his third of the season a little under three minutes later.
The visitors kept it coming as Cotton struck for his second of the night 7:31 into the third.
The Rebels replied with some special teams of their own as Josh Tarzwell scored on the power play with 6:25 to go before Rowland scored his second of the game with a shorthanded breakaway marker with 3:45 remaining to round out the scoring.
The Hurricanes outshot the Rebels 37-31 as Lethbridge’s power play went 3-for-6. Red Deer was 1-for-7 with the man advantage.
Tetachuk stopped 28 of the 31 shots he faced, while Claresholm’s Byron Fancy got the start for Red Deer, kicking out 31 of 37 shots.
The weekend series now shifts to Lethbridge and stays there as the Canes and Rebels face off tonight at 7 p.m. at the Enmax Centre before the teams wrap up the weekend Monday at 7 p.m., also at the Enmax Centre.
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