U15 Wheat Kings triple down Bruins to even series

The Brandon Wheat Kings just earned their biggest win of the year.

The Wheat Kings (4-1) got back in the win column in Game 2 to even their Winnipeg Hockey League U15 AAA best-of-five semifinals series at ones after ousting the Winnipeg Bruins Gold (4-1) 6-2 at J&G Homes Arena on Sunday afternoon.

Brandon forwards Kale Nicol and Beckett Boguski hit the back of the net twice, while Daniel Flett-Neapew and Riley Mangin added singles and goaltender Aurick Veldhuisen made 29 saves to lead their club to a bounce-back victory following a 5-4 Game 1 loss on Saturday. Captain Tyler McCallum and Chimezie Uzoruo got on the scoresheet for Winnipeg.

“It feels really good,” said Boguski, who notched the game winner less than halfway into the second frame. “After a bad loss (yesterday) we actually came back to show these guys we mean business.

“When we got to the rink today a lot of people were vocal and hyped for the game and stuff and everyone was just ready to go today. Now, we’re here to stay and we’re trying to reclaim the crown.”

And in a game that hung around must-win territory after the Bruins drew first blood in the opener, the Wheat Kings came out to play.

From the very first drop of the puck, they looked faster, more physical and significantly more connected throughout all three zones of the ice. Their play out of the gate earned them a power play less than six minutes into the first frame after Winnipeg’s Rhylan Murray headed to the box for hooking.

The Wheat Kings pressed hard on the man advantage and finally broke the ice after Nicol circled the net and then wired a seeing-eye shot from the blue-line top-shelf past the glove of goaltender Nicolas Fontaine to make it 1-0 with 12 minutes 50 seconds left to go in the opening frame.

After neither team scored for the remainder of the period, Flett-Neapew doubled his team’s lead five minutes 20 seconds into the middle frame after turning over a poor breakout pass by the Bruins in the neutral zone just 30 seconds after getting out of the penalty box and then reeling into the zone before ripping one home five-hole on Fontaine from the top of the right circle.

But Brandon wasn’t ready to stop there.

After applying some more pressure in the offensive zone, Wheat Kings forward Jordan Lang threw a puck toward the net from the left halfway for an easy pad save for Fontaine, however, the rebound squirted out right to Boguski, who parked himself in front of the net and buried it to make it 3-0.

Defenceman Jace Woloski headed to the box a few minutes later for a minor head contact penalty, which put the Bruins on the man advantage and forced Veldhuisen to make a spralling cross-crease stop on McCallum, who appeared to have four feet of daylight, before getting completely robbed.

The Bruins continued to push the ensuing play as Uzoruo whistled one from the blue-line and hit iron, before the rebound spewed out behind Veldhuisen, who covered for a stoppage.

It seemed like the ice was beginning to tilt in Winnipeg’s direction until Boguski’s line with Lang and Mangin struck again, and in similar fashion, as Boguski once again cleaned up the garbage in front after Lang shovelled a puck toward the net from in tight to make it four unanswered goals for Brandon and end Fontaine’s day with just under eight minutes to go in the second.

In the third period, McCallum capitalized on a Brandon defensive zone hiccup and wristed one past Veldhuisen to give his team some life with over 16 minutes remaining.

After trading a handful of chances on attack, it was the Wheat Kings who replied after Bruins relief goaltender Jaxon Smedvik fumbled a rebound in front of the net, which Nicol just chopped at to make it 5-1.

Less than four minutes later Uzoruo got the Bruins back on the board after rushing from his own end and then blazing past a Wheat Kings defender wide, before taking a sharp angle shot from the left corner and squeezing it past the ear of Veldhuisen.

Brandon kept them at bay after that, though, and would add one last tally with 57 seconds left after Uzoruo broke a tire at centre ice trying to regroup from an offside and sent Mangin all alone for a breakaway which he buried after sliding one through the wickets with a backhand-forehand deke to make it 6-2 en route to a Game 2 win.

Veldhuisen, who earned his first U15 post-season win, said it would have been nice to head into Winnipeg with a 2-0 series lead, but there’s still plenty of positives to take from their win.

“It’s really great,” Veldhuisen said post-game. “Everyone kind of has their role play on the team, I think I did what I did and obviously everyone else in there did what they had to do and we were able to come up with a win.

“Obviously not what we wanted going one-and-one at home, but if we can go back to Winnipeg and get a game there, or two, that’s really good for us going into that.”

Veldhuisen came in relief of Cash Didluck after the veteran netminder gave up four goals on 19 shots in 35 minutes in Game 1. He made six saves on seven shots after coming in cold, but even in limited action, he still said it helped him in the crease for Sunday’s contest.

“Just getting to see kind of how they play the offensive zone. They really like rimming the puck and throwing pucks on net, so seeing what they did coming in today was really helpful.”

Assistant coach Chris Johnston liked what he saw from the rookie.

“His game was excellent,” Johnston said. “The second goal goes off his head and in and it didn’t affect us, but, probably one that he would not want to give up, but other than that, I think our goaltending was great.

“We didn’t help our other goalie in Game 1 as much as we did today, so the fact that we were able to help out our goal makes everything a lot easier.”

Johnston believes the difference between the two games came down to one factor: Compete — and they certainly had no shortage of it in the latter.

“It was way better,” he said. “We competed like we were supposed to, which if you compete hard, you can correct mistakes, and I didn’t think we had as great a compete yesterday as we did today. We had some really good backside pressure, our back check was really good today, so it limited their opportunities and we did a very good job of keeping pucks to the outside.

“We didn’t do a good enough job in Game 1 of getting to the net and today we didn’t get boxed out as much, and the more pucks you get to the net, the more you’re gonna maybe get an opportunity, so it was a very hard fought hockey game.”

The Wheat Kings will look to make it two wins in a row on Tuesday, when they play Game 3 in Winnipeg at Southdale Arena (6:15 p.m.). Game 4 is set for the same time and place on Thursday. If necessary, Game 5 is on Saturday at J&G (2 p.m.).

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com