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Red Deer Rebels' Dallon Melin shoots on Calgary Hitmen goaltender Brayden Peters. (Red Deer Rebels/Rob Wallator)
Back-to-back wins for Rebels

Rebels shut out Hitmen 3-0

Dec 17, 2021 | 11:19 PM

Following a dominant win over the Swift Current Broncos on Wednesday, the Red Deer Rebels followed that up with a 3-0 shut out victory over the Calgary Hitmen at the Peavey Mart Centrium Friday night.

The first period kicked off with a goal nearing the halfway mark by the Rebels’ Arshdeep Bains on Calgary netminder Brayden Peters. It was his 14th goal of the season and assisted by Ben King and Blake Gustafson.

After 20 minutes of play, the Rebels had twice as many shots on goal compared to the Hitmen, by a margin of 14-7.

The second period saw no goals scored, with only a pair of roughing penalties to the Hitmen’s Keagan Slaney and the Rebels’ Arshdeep Bains at 12:13. However, an interference on the goalie penalty to the Rebels Kai Uchacz at the 20-minute mark led the team to being one-man down entering the third period.

Although the Hitmen outshot Red Deer 10-7 in the second period, they remained unsuccessful in their attempts to tie the game.

Despite being short-handed to start the third period, the Rebels Blake Stevenson scored just 31 seconds in to make it 2-0 Red Deer. It was Stevenson’s ninth goal of the season and came unassisted.

Six minutes later, the Rebels Ben King scored his 18th goal this season, assisted by previous goal scorer Arshdeep Bains, to make it 3-0 Red Deer.

The third period ended in an uproar with its final minute landing a 10-minute misconduct penalty for Red Deer’s Arshdeep Bains and Calgary’s Billal Noori, as well as the Rebel’s Carter Anderson who was sent to the box for roughing.

The Rebels not only outshot the Hitmen in the final 20-minutes of play 17-7, but also overall, 38-24.

Both teams were unable to capitalize on their power plays with Calgary going 0/5 and Red Deer 0/3.

The home team received all three stars for Friday night’s game, with Ben King given the third star, Arshdeep Bains the second, and goalie Connor Ungar the first star.

With the win, the Rebels’ record improves to 19-9-1-1 on the season, good for second place in the WHL’s Central Division, while the Hitmen drop to 11-11-2-2, good for third place in the Central Division.

The Hitmen, however, will have a chance to seek revenge on the Rebels this Sunday, Dec. 19 on home ice at Scotiabank Centre starting at 2 p.m.