Losing to the second-last placed team in the league, heading into tonight’s (Oct. 14) game, wasn’t on the list of things-to-do for Red Deer Rebels head coach Brent Sutter.

Rebels were outplayed all night long, in a 4-1 loss at the hands of the Saskatoon Blades.

Outshot 38-28, Sutter said he wasn’t too pleased with the effort he saw.

“It wasn’t good. Outside of our goalie, give me one player on our team that played even close to what we expected from them tonight. It was just terrible, right through our whole lineup.”

Sutter understands you can’t win every game, but still has no excuse for the loss.

“I give Saskatoon credit, but come on, let’s not kid ourselves. It doesn’t matter who the opponent was tonight, we weren’t even close to the level we have to play at.”

When asked what needs to change during a game like that, Sutter said the solution is obvious.

“Someone has to step up. I thought maybe the goal we scored (Grayson Pawlenchuk at 0:51) early in the third would give us some momentum and it maybe did for four or five minutes, kept the game close, but flat out, we just weren’t good.”

Rebels aren’t back in action until Friday when they play host to the Calgary Hitmen.

(From start to finish, the Blades were the better team, driving to the net and making plays happen.)