Brandon earns split against Alberta clubs

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This article was published 22/01/2024 (606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Medicine Hat Tigers broke open a 3-3 tie with four goals in the third period as they beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 7-3 in Western Hockey League action at Westoba Place on Sunday.

Medicine Hat (28-14-3-0) received two goals each from Oasiz Wiesblatt and Hayden Harsanyi, and singles from Dru Krebs, Hunter St. Martin and Tomas Mrsic, while Rylen Roersma, Brett Hyland and Joby Baumuller replied for Brandon (22-16-4-1) in front of a crowd of 2,275.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said it was a game when a lot of the adversity his team faced was self inflicted.

“We talk about puck management until we’re blue in the face,” Murray said. “I think a majority of the goals were us having complete control of the puck and we mismanage it and it ends up in our net.”

Overage forward Jayden Wiens, who returned to the lineup after missing Saturday’s game due to illness, agreed his team was careless and it cost them.

“We gave them every goal pretty much,” Wiens said. “It wasn’t a structure thing, it was just puck management at the blue-lines. We turned it over and they came down and scored on us and that’s what good teams do. If we want to be a good team and play with these top teams, we’re going to have to do a better job of that.”

The Wheat Kings fell behind 32 seconds into the game on an own goal. Krebs fired a pass into the middle, and Roger McQueen attempted to break up the pass to Gavin McKenna but instead deflected the puck through the legs of goalie Ethan Eskit.

Brandon sent Medicine Hat to a 59-second five-on-three power play eight minutes into the game, but the threat was mostly nullified when the Tigers were penalized for a faceoff violation on the ensuing draw.

Roersma tied the game late in the first period with an unassisted goal after he picked up the puck in the neutral zone, raced in on the wing and fired a shot under the glove of Medicine Hat goalie Ethan McCallum, who is a Brandon product.

The Tigers pushed early in the second period, with Eskit making an outstanding pad save on a three-on-one. But after a stretch pass sent Shane Smith all alone, Jackson DeSouza tied him up and was flagged for holding as the forward fell to the ice. It took just five seconds for the visitors to connect on a tic-tac-toe play to St. Martin in the slot.

Brandon tied it three minutes later. As the Wheat Kings broke into the Tigers zone off the rush, Hyland fired a shot from the high slot through traffic that went over McCallum’s glove to make it 2-2.

The Tigers raced back into the lead 95 seconds later after a turnover by defenceman Rhett Ravndahl low in the Brandon zone. Wiesblatt fired a shot on net and punched in the rebound after Eskit was unable to corral the puck.

But Brandon’s fourth line, which has been a reliable offensive contributor lately, came to the rescue again, with Hayden Wheddon finding Baumuller off the rush and the rookie forward firing in his second goal of the season. The assist extended Hayden Wheddon’s point streak to four games.

“(Carter Klippenstein) gave it up to Wheds and he threw it across the ice to me and honestly I just threw the puck on net,” Baumuller said. “It was nice to finally get one of those shots on net that I’ve been waiting for so it’s good.”

The third period proved to be all Tigers.

Another Brandon turnover put Medicine Hat back in the lead. Hyland lost the puck in the middle of his zone and it went to Tomas Mrsic. His shot was stopped by Eskit but the rebound hit Harsanyi and bounced into the net.

The Tigers took their first two-goal lead on a highlight goal by Mrsic. He broke through two Brandon defenders near the top of the zone, deked around another and from his knees lifted the puck into the top of the net to put the visitors up 5-3.

Harsanyi and Wiesblatt then added late goals to complete the rout.

“The third period was tough,” Wiens said. “It was close up until then. You play a good 20 minutes and you win, and we didn’t and we lost the game. We have to play a full 60 minutes.”

Murray said after two fairly even periods, his club just wasn’t good enough in the final frame.

“We gave up an unfortunate one 30 seconds in and then we were able to tie after one, and it was a pretty even period,” Murray said. “The second was kind of back and forth again, although we spent some time in the penalty box. The third was the difference in the game. We were careless and good players make you pay.”

Eskit made 31 saves for the Wheat Kings, with McCallum stopping 25 shots for the Tigers.

Brandon went 0-for-2 on the power play, with Medicine Hat scoring once in six chances.

Medicine Hat head coach Willie Desjardins, whose club was playing its third game in three days and was without top performers Andrew Basha and Cayden Lindstrom, said some puck luck proved helpful.

“We capitalized on a couple of plays and got some breaks in the third,” Desjardins said. “A couple went off someone and in, and that made a difference. All of a sudden it goes from 3-3 and we’re up by three and it just changes the game. We got a couple of breaks when we needed it.”

ICINGS: Brandon skated without F Matt Henry (suspension), G Carson Bjarnason (lower-body injury, week-to-week) and D Charlie Elick (Top Prospects Game) … DeSouza led the Wheat Kings with five shots on net … The game took two hours, 23 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Brandon won 39-30 … The Wheat Kings head out on the road for a three-in-three trip in Alberta next weekend. Their next home game is Feb. 2 when the Red Deer Rebels visit.

BRANDON 6 LETHBRIDGE 0

Ethan Eskit made 38 saves for his first WWHL shutout, Carter Klippenstein had a goal and an assist against his hometown team and Brett Hyland scored twice as the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes 6-0 at Westoba Place on Saturday.

Brandon (22-15-4-1) received its other goals from Nolan Flamand, Charlie Elick and Dominik Petr in front of a crowd of 2,670.

Lethbridge fell to 21-19-3-0, one night after beating the Pats 6-2 in Regina.

“It feels great but at the end of the day we play again tomorrow,” Eskit said with a smile after the game. “I just have to refocus. As a goalie, you can’t get too high and you can’t get too low. I’ll have fun and enjoy the next hour and then get ready for tomorrow and move on to the next page.”

Brandon also shut out Lethbridge on Oct. 11 when Carson Bjarnason made 36 saves. But since the starter from Carberry is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury, the job is Eskit’s for the foreseeable future.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray certainly appreciated what the rookie netminder from Calgary accomplished.

“He was excellent,” Murray said. “He’s really come into his own as a young player in the league. His last 10 appearances have been really good and tonight was kind of the icing on the cake. He was fantastic. Especially early on, he made some big saves when the game could have gone the other way pretty quick. Right to the end, he made an unbelievable save on the power play to secure the shutout. It was a great night for Ethan.”

The visitors came out with a lot of pep but Brandon opened the scoring on their first sustained offensive pressure, three minutes 34 seconds in the first period. During a scramble in front of the Lethbridge net, the puck popped out to Hyland, who put a quick shot past helpless Lethbridge goalie Harrison Meneghin.

Murray has talked about his team’s need to score more goals on rebounds near the net when they struggled to score on some nights recently, and the message apparently got through.

“That’s huge,” Murray said. “One of the things we continue to preach is playing inside the dots and getting to those dirty areas, and there have been some nights where we have a lot of shots and don’t really get rewarded for it. You have to get to those areas, and I thought the Hyland goal early kind of set the tone for that and we continued to get there throughout the evening.”

The Wheat Kings were fortunate to maintain the lead through the next shift, with Hurricanes forward Kooper Gizowski beating Eskit but not the post. Lethbridge had another Grade A scoring chance later in the period but Eskit made a tremendous pad save after a terrible turnover in the Brandon end: Overage forward Dylan Sydor came in and the netminder was able to deny the attempted deke with his pad.

“It doesn’t totally impact on how the game is going to go but when you get a few saves at the start and it starts rolling, it definitely makes things easier,” Eskit said.

Murray said one of the keys to the win was denying Lethbridge a goal in the opening 10 minutes as they pressed and created chances.

Brandon extended the lead 11:38 into the second period. Meneghin made a pair of saves but Klippenstein jumped on the third chance for his seventh goal of the season.

“I felt like I wasn’t providing enough for the team so I was crashing the net and our line was getting energy that shift,” Klippenstein said. “The puck popped out to me and I was in the right spot and I put it in.”

Less than three minutes later, Flamand scored a power-play goal when the puck came to him at the side of the net off a blocked shot to put the hosts up three goals. The man advantage came off a reasonably rare goalie penalty when Meneghin was flagged for tripping.

The back-breaker came late in the second period.

Meneghin thought he had the puck after a shot by Klippenstein but it trickled behind him. It was swept away by Lethbridge forward Kash Andresen but the puck went straight to Elick, and he fired a bullet between Meneghin and Andresen to give Brandon a 4-0 lead.

Meneghin gave way to backup Brady Smith to start the third period, but not much else changed.

Just after completing a penalty kill that straddled the periods, Petr broke down the ice on a two-on-one, hesitated like he was going to pass and then fired a shot into the top corner.

The hosts made it 6-0 on their second power play — 12:45 into the third period — when Smith made a blocker save on McQueen but the puck went up in the air and was batted in by Hyland for his second of the game.

Lethbridge went to the power play with less than four minutes remaining and Eskit preserved his shutout by correctly reading a backdoor play and sliding across the net to stop a one-timer.

“He was on his game tonight,” Klippenstein said. “He kept us in, especially in the first period, with some unbelievable saves.”

Meneghin and Smith combined to stop 32 shots for the Hurricanes. Brandon went 2-for-2 on the power play, with Lethbridge unsuccessful in two chances.

Lethbridge head coach Bill Peters said the lack of offensive success in the first period proved costly.

“I liked our start,” Peters said. “I thought we needed to get one early, and when we didn’t, it became a bit of an uphill climb. They didn’t give us much obviously and we had a hard time finding the net.”

ICINGS: F Nick Johnson made his Brandon debut. He was part of the Nate Danielson trade and is wearing No. 26, which was also worn by Trae Johnson. They aren’t related … Brady Turko of McCreary made his WHL debut for Brandon … Eskit was backed up by 15-year-old Brandon prospect Dylan McFadyen of Winnipeg, who made 43 saves in the afternoon as his Interlake Lightning fell 5-4 to the U18 Wheat Kings. Fellow prospect Jaxon Jacobson had the winning goal and three assists … McQueen led the Wheat Kings with five shots on net … The game took two hours, 24 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Brandon won 43-27.

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