Flamand snipes in OT to lead Wheaties past Broncos

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This article was published 03/02/2024 (692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nolan Flamand scored his second goal of the game exactly two minutes into overtime as the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings earned a 5-4 victory over the Swift Current Broncos in Western Hockey League action at InnovationPlex on Saturday.
Brandon (24-18-5-1) received its other goals from Nick Johnson, Jayden Wiens and Brett Hyland, with Rylan Gould sniping twice and Clarke Caswell and Josh Filmon also replying for Swift Current (24-18-4-2) in front of a crowd of 1,987
Brandon general manager and head coach Marty Murray said it was an up and down night that ended well.
“I thought in the first period it was nice to get a couple early and get our feet wet in the game,” Murray said. “It was kind of back and forth and sawed off after one. In the second period, we kind of held on by a thread. I didn’t think we were great and in turn ended up taking quite a few penalties and with their firepower, you’re playing with fire but our PK did a real good job killing penalties and kind of got through that hump in the game.
“I thought we were really good in the last five minutes of the second and it carried on a little bit into the third. I thought the shots were at one point were 21-8 but in the last 25 minutes we played better and gave ourselves a chance.”
The first 10 minutes featured plenty of scoring.
Brandon needed just 36 seconds to take the lead. Johnson scored his first goal as a Wheat King, ripping a shot from the high slot that beat Swift Current goalie Joey Rocha low on the glove side.
Caswell tied it against his hometown club three minutes later when he found some space, beat a Brandon forward to the net and put the puck over the blocker of Brandon goalie Ethan Eskit four minutes 48 seconds into the game.
The teams traded goals in the next three minutes.
Brandon went to its second power play four seconds after the tying goal, and made the hosts pay when they moved the puck back and forth at the blue-line and Andrei Maliavan’s shot was deflected by Flamand. But less than two minutes later, Eskit stopped the initial shot off the rush by Strathclair’s Conor Geekie, but Mathew Ward pounced on the rebound and made a pass across the crease to Filmon, who had an open net to make it 2-2.
Just after a Swift Current man advantage that straddled the periods ended, Brandon’s penalty killers broke the puck out of the zone but after a careless turnover, the Broncos raced back in on a three-on-one and Gould capitalized to give the hosts their first lead.
Swift Current enjoyed a massive surge of momentum, and with three power plays — and five in a row in the game — had the first 10 shots in the middle frame as it took Brandon 13:41 just to put a puck on net.
“I remember telling our bench that was our first shot,” Murray said. “We were just kind of stuck in mud the first 15 minutes of the second and then we woke up and had some life and created some turnovers.”
The tide turned in the final few minutes, and Brandon tied the game after some hard work in the Swift Current zone. Caleb Hadland forced a turnover and the puck ended up on the stick of the overage forward Wiens, who skated a few steps toward the face-off dot and wired a shot inside the far post to make it 3-3.
“It was a big goal by Wiens to tie it up,” Murray said. “That helped with the feel going into the locker room after 2.”
Roger McQueen earned his third assist 1:07 into the third period when he skated through the neutral zone with the puck after a shot block by Charlie Elick, backhanded a pass to Hyland, and the overage forward snuck a shot past Reid Dyck — who replaced Rocha after the second period — to give the Wheat Kings the lead.
But the game was tied up for the fourth time just after a four-on-four situation ended. Swift Current broke into the Brandon zone on a three-on-one and Gould ended up all alone in the slot and put a shot over Eskit’s shoulder.
In overtime, Brandon had the puck for the first 1:44. After a draw in the Swift Current zone, the puck came back down the ice, and Flamand broke right back up the middle. After Elick and Ward had a minor collision near the blue-line, Flamand cut through the Swift Current defenders and backhanded a shot over Dyck’s glove for the victory. Swift Current never had puck possession.
“He’s one of those guys with sneaky skill,” Murray said of Flamand. “He did a good job. I thought somebody made a real subtle pick — I thought it was Elick — but it opened up some space in the middle and he saw a lane. Those backhand shots are tricky. The thing I liked about it was he shot it in stride, and it’s hard to read where it’s coming off the stick. He caught the goalie off guard a little bit, and I thought it was a really good shot, not hard, but the way he got it off with his feet moving was probably the difference in getting it into the net.”
Eskit made 26 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Rocha and Duck combining to stop 19 shots for the Broncos in the battle of the backups.
Brandon went 1-for-3 on the power play, with Swift Current unsuccessful in six chances.
The Wheat Kings also weathered a tough period on Friday — they were outshot 18-2 in the third by the Red Deer Rebels — but emerged with a 4-1 victory. Their three-in-three weekend continues on Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock when they travel to Saskatoon to meet the league-leading Blades.
“You don’t get much more adversity than this weekend,” Murray said with a chuckle. “Playing last night and Swift today and Saskatoon tomorrow. It’s a grind, and you can look at it one way that it’s a huge obstacle but our guys have approached it as an opportunity to gel together even more and get into that playoff mode. Every game feels like the playoffs now.”
ICINGS: Brandon skated without D Quinn Mantei (lower body, day to day) and F Matt Henry (eighth game of eight-game suspension) … Swift Current overage D Tyson Galloway is out month to month with a lower-body injury … Elick had two assists … McQueen and Flamand led the Wheat Kings with three shots each on net … The game took two hours, 27 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, the Broncos won 38-23.
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