Patrick hat trick leads Wheaties into final

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This article was published 30/04/2016 (3699 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nolan Patrick has led the Brandon Wheat Kings back to the Western Hockey League final.

The 17-year-old winger from Winnipeg scored his second career hat trick and added two assists as the Wheat Kings beat the Red Deer Rebels 5-2 at Westman Place on Friday and won the Eastern Conference crown for the second year in a row.

The Wheat Kings beat the Rebels, who will host the Memorial Cup next month, 4-1 in the best-of-seven conference final. The championship series begins at Westman Place next Friday against the Seattle Thunderbirds after the Western Conference champs eliminated the Kelowna Rockets 4-0.

“It’s obviously nice to get those numbers but my linemates are unbelievable,” Patrick said. “Jayce (Hawryluk) made a great play on my second goal and John (Quenneville) made a great pass on my third goal so I pretty much put it into an empty net.”

Quenneville and Kale Clague also scored for Brandon. Patrick’s linemates Hawryluk and Tyler Coulter each had two assists. Red Deer received goals from Jake DeBrusk and Evan Polei.

Brandon head coach and general manager Kelly McCrimmon said he was happy for his team, which lost the 2014-15 league final to the Kelowna Rockets.

“Our goal right from when we lost out last year was to get back,” McCrimmon said. “Hopefully we’ll be successful this time around.”

Brandon dominated the early going — seven minutes in the shots were 9-3 for the Wheat Kings — but Red Deer forward Jake DeBrusk opened the scoring with a nice deflection of a shot from the point by defenceman Colton Bobyk after he held the puck in the zone. It was the fourth game in a row that the Rebels opened the scoring, with the goal coming seven minutes 16 seconds in.

The Wheat Kings tied the game three minutes later when Patrick fired a shot by Rebels starter Rylan Toth on a play created by linemate Hawryluk when he intercepted a Red Deer clearing attempt.

Patrick appeared to score again two minutes later when a dump-in from just outside the blue-line bounced by Toth but the Wheat Kings were correctly ruled to be off-side.

The Rebels regained the lead just after a power play had ended when confusion on a Wheat Kings line change led to a three-on-one, with Evan Polei rolling a rebound up over Brandon starter Jordan Papirny’s shoulder and over the goal-line 14:23 into the opening frame.

Patrick netted his second marker early in the middle frame when he tipped in a lovely pass by Hawryluk during a two-on-two, and put his team ahead with his hat-trick goal when he roofed the puck over a sprawling Toth on a nice pass by Quenneville.

It was the second hat trick of his career; the first came against the Saskatoon Blades in February.

Three minutes later, Patrick returned the favour when he created a turnover while killing a penalty, skated it up the ice and passed it to Quenneville, who rifled a bullet over the shoulder of Toth to put his team up 4-2 with 47 seconds left in the middle frame.

“Obviously it’s no secret what kind of player he is,” Quenneville said. “The night he had tonight was incredible. he took the game over all by himself. He was the man. Having a guy like that step up for you is what you need at playoff time and what a job he did tonight.”

Kale Clague iced the game in the third when he pinched on a four-on-four, took a pass from Patrick, hesitated and then fired the puck by Toth.

Red Deer associate coach Jeff Truitt was disappointed the series didn’t go better for his team, which led in every game but won only once.

“When you’re in the conference finals you need high levels from everybody,” Truitt said. “It’s too deep in the season; if you don’t have maximum effectiveness from everybody you’re going to get beat. We didn’t do enough of the little things to gain momentum to put us over the top to beat Brandon. They’’ jump you and capitalize off the rush. You saw that here tonight.”

Papirny made 24 saves for Brandon, with Toth stopping 26 shots for Red Deer.

ICINGS: The Wheat Kings went with the same lineup for the 10th game in a row, scratching D Schael Higson, F Garrett Armour, F Caiden Daley and D/F Mark Matsuba … The Rebels scratched F Conner Bleackley and F Reese Johnson with injuries. G Dawson Weatherill, D Carson Sass, D Ethan Sakowich, D Austin Shmoorkoff and F Taden Rattie also sat … F John Quenneville trailed F Bill Derlago by six points (60-54) going into Friday’s game for third all-time in Brandon career scoring in the playoffs … DeBrusk, F Adam Helewka and D Haydn Fleury had a point in each of the first four games of the series. DeBrusk also scored in Game 5.

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