Rebels earn overtime victory versus Oil Kings

The Rebels tied things up soon afterwards though, when Blake Stevenson fired a slapper from the face-off circle just inside the post to beat Oil Kings netminder Sebastian Cossa to make it 1-1. It was Stevenson’s fifth goal of the season and came on the power play at 9:07, following a hooking penalty to Edmonton’s Jaxsen Wiebe. Arshdeep Bains and Christoffer Sedoff assisted on the goal.

Not long after, a high sticking penalty to the Oil Kings Jakub Demek put the Rebels on the power play again and the home team capitalized. Ben King scored his sixth goal of the season on a wrist shot from the face-off circle, beating Sebastian Cossa and putting the Rebels up 2-1. The unassisted goal came at the 12:02 mark of the second period.

Roughly four minutes later, Red Deer added to their lead when Jhett Larson scored his second goal of the season after receiving a pass on a partial break-away from Ben King at 16:03 to put the Rebels up 3-1. Arshdeep Bains was also credited with an assist on the goal for Red Deer who held on to their two-goal lead after 40 minutes.

The Rebels continued their dominance on the shot clock in the middle frame as well, outshooting the Oil Kings 19-10 in the second period for a two period total of 32-14.

Edmonton remained 0/4 on the power play to the point, while Red Deer was 2/6.

The Oil Kings cut the Rebels lead to 3-2 in the third period though, when Jalen Luypen scored his fourth goal of the season by popping in a rebound off Connor Ungar at the 5:15 mark, assisted by Eric Johnston and Josh Williams.

Edmonton would tie it up nearly 12 minutes later when the Oil Kings Jalen Luypen scored his fifth of the season and second of the game after receiving a pass from teammate Jacob Boucher on a two on oh at 16:50 to make it 3-3.

That sent the game to overtime, where Red Deer capitalized on an Edmonton hooking penalty to Luke Prokop with just under a minute left to play in extra time when Ben King scored his seventh goal of the season and second of the game from in close to seal the 4-3 overtime win for Red Deer. The goal came at 4:26 and was assisted by Christoffer Sedoff and Blake Stevenson.

Shots on goal were 9-9 in the third period and 4-3 for Edmonton in overtime, with the Rebels outshooting Edmonton 44-27 by game’s end.

Power play opportunities saw the Oil Kings go 0/5 with the man advantage, while the Rebels were 3/9.

The third star of the game was Red Deer’s Blake Stevenson. The second star was Edmonton’s Jalen Luypen. The first star of the game was Red Deer’s Ben King.

King acknowledges the team fought hard for the win.

“In the past, we’ve struggled against them, but this year, I think we’re 3-1 now against them, so it’s good to kind of get the success finally. We just got to keep putting our foot down every time we play them and every team in the league. We know we can win and we come in with that mindset,” says King.

Head coach Steve Konowalchuk admits the Rebels put in a strong effort throughout the entire game.

“I thought our guys were ready to play, they came out ready. Edmonton gets the first goal, but it didn’t deflate our guys, we kept playing and then we get some adversity there in the end with kind of a weird bounce in the neutral zone there, but those things are going to happen and we got back at it and played well in the three-on three and it was good to see us finish the game,” he surmised.

The win improves the Rebels record to 7-4-1 on the season and one point back of the Central Division leading Oil Kings who now drop to 7-2-1-1 on the season.

The Rebels now head out on a seven game road trip, starting with a battle in Calgary against the Hitmen on Sunday, Oct. 31. Face-off is 2 p.m.

by Sheldon Spackman

Rebels earn overtime victory versus Oil Kings

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