Hitmen rally late to beat Wheat Kings

The visiting Calgary Hitmen created some distance for themselves in the Eastern Conference playoff race as they rallied with four unanswered goals in the third period to beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 5-4 in Western Hockey League action at Assiniboine Credit Union Place on Friday.

Fourth-place Calgary (28-13-6-1), which went up six points with two games in hand, received its goals from Ty Meunier, Andrei Molgachev, Ethan Moore, Julien Maze, and Harrison Lodewyk, with Jaxon Jacobson posting a hat trick and an assist and Luke Mistelbacher also sniping for Brandon (29-20-1-0) in front of a crowd of 3,657.

Brandon, which was already skating without injured forwards Carter Klippenstein, Chase Surkan, and Easton Odut — plus defencemen Merrek Arpin and Dylan Ronald — lost two more forwards in the second period, Caleb Hadland and leading goal scorer Joby Baumuller. That left them with nine forwards and seven defencemen.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said it was a tough night in a lot of ways.

“It’s disappointing,” Murray said. “We’re up 4-1 and anybody watching the game knows we’re pretty banged up. We’re down to nine forwards and missing some key guys, but we were gritty and showed a lot, getting up 4-1 and then got tired.

“We’re missing four of our top nine forwards, so a lot of guys were getting pushed up the lineup, and we took a couple of penalties we didn’t need to take, and the rest is history.”

Jacobson, who eclipsed his former season high of 15 goals with his 15th, 16th, and 17th of the campaign, said his group had to be better when the tough times hit.

“We just have to realize the situation we’re in up 4-1,” Jacobson said. “It sounds crazy to say that right now, we just have to put all of our effort into getting the puck down low and make them work in their zone. When you’re short-staffed, the best thing you can do is get in their zone with quick shifts and try to roll them over, but we did quite the opposite.

“We got hemmed in and took some long ones and then it ended up costing us.”

The Wheat Kings suffered an early blow seven minutes into the game when defenceman Daniil Skvortsov went down to block a shot and then stayed down and left the game favouring his lower left leg.

Defenceman Easten Turko, the younger brother of Brandon forward Brady, made his Wheat Kings debut as a seventh defenceman, so they did have someone to plug into the hole.

Happily for the hosts, the Russian defenceman came back a few minutes later.

The Hitmen took the lead exactly 14 minutes into the game on their second power play when Kale Dach made a terrific cross-crease pass to Meunier on a backdoor play that Wheat Kings goalie Jayden Kraus had no chance on.

Brandon tied with a power-play goal of their own almost five minutes later. Calgary cleared the puck into the neutral zone, and when a penalty killer rushed off the ice, Brandon attacked on the rush and Baumuller found Jacobson for a shot that snuck under the blocker of Calgary goalie Eric Tu.

The Wheat Kings had nearly tied the game early in the power play when a shot by Brady Turko hit the crossbar and bounced straight down but somehow stayed out.

The hosts took the lead 92 seconds into the middle frame off the rush again when Gio Pantelas found Mistelbacher at the side of the net, and he fired a shot past Tu on the short side.

Calgary immediately attacked back, and Kraus had to deny Meunier on a short two-on-one and three minutes later, Mistelbacher ripped a puck off the post on a glorious setup by Grayson Burzynski.

At the other end, Easten Turko threw himself in front of a shot aimed at an empty net to save a goal with six minutes left in the middle frame.

Before the period ended, however, Burzynski found Jacobson all alone with another deft pass and Brandon led 3-1 despite being outshot 23-16.

By the end of the second period, Brandon’s lines had been thrown into disarray with the injuries. Fortunately for the hosts, Nick Johnson also left but came back.

Jacobson scored his hat-trick goal 89 seconds into the third period as the Wheat Kings raced in on an odd-man rush. Mistelbacher found him trailing the play and he ripped a shot past Tu to make it 4-1.

“He was real strong,” Murray said of Jacobson. “I thought in the first period he took a few shifts to get going, but after he scored he was excellent all night.”

That proved to be the high-water mark for Brandon.

After they picked up the hats on the ice, it took just 44 seconds for the Hitmen to score when Molgachev carried the puck in, dodged some traffic in the slot and lifted a shot over the shoulder of Kraus.

Three minutes later, Molgachev fired a shot that Kraus stopped, but Moore jumped on the rebound and fired it into the open net, and the game was back within a goal at 4-3.

The short-staffed Wheat Kings were back on their heels as the Hitmen continued to attack, getting outshot 16-5 in the period.

The teams went to four-on-four action for two minutes at the 13:09 mark, and Mistelbacher had two good chances to widen the lead, but Tu stopped one and he missed the net with the other, while Kraus had to be sharp with his pad to deny a Calgary attempt at the other end.

Brandon then sent Calgary back to the power play with 4:23 remaining in regulation and did a good job until Maze hammered a shot in off the cross bar with 2:54 left to tie it 4-4.

Then, just 45 seconds later, Lodewyk was the happy recipient of a turnover deep in the Brandon zone and beat Kraus with the winning goal with 2:09 left.

Brandon pulled the goalie for the extra attacker with 63 seconds left, but the Wheat Kings never created a good chance.

The teams meet once more this season, on March 11 in Calgary.

“That’s a team we’re going to be seeing at some point later this season and maybe playoffs,” Jacobson said. “Through the first two periods with a pretty full lineup, we did pretty good, but in the third period we collapsed with a short bench. We have to handle that a little better.”

Kraus made 34 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Tu stopping 17 shots for the Hitmen.

Brandon went 1-for-2 on the power play, with Calgary scoring twice in three chances.

Calgary head coach Dustin Friesen said his group finally came together in the final frame.

“I thought we were OK the first two periods,” Friesen said. “Brandon is extremely good in transition and off the rush and I didn’t think we managed pucks very well. I liked our response in the third period. I liked the response and we stuck with it.”

ICINGS: The team announced on Friday that Arpin and Klippenstein are officially done for the season … Brandon added 19-year-old forward Brett Wilson from the BCHL’s Okotoks Oilers. He is expected to make his Wheat Kings debut tonight when they travel to Prince Albert to meet the Raiders. Wilson is a former teammate of current Wheat King Ryan Boyce and has 32 points in 36 games this season … In their previous meetings against the Hitmen this season, the Wheat Kings lost 3-1 at home on Nov. 2, and won 3-2 in overtime in Calgary on Dec. 19 … A young crowd in town for the Tournament of Champions actually got the wave going in the second period in the normally staid arena … Jacobson and Mistelbacher led the Wheat Kings with four shots each on net … The game took two hours, … minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, both teams won 26 draws.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com