Krzyzaniak impresses with Canadian women’s team

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/11/2014 (3969 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some news, notes and quotes as Brandon gears up for the star-studded Remembrance Day clash between the WHL and Russian juniors on Tuesday at Westman Place:

• It was great to see Neepawa’s Halli Krzyzaniak notch her first career point as a member of the national women’s hockey team on Wednesday night, assisting on the game-winning goal in Canada’s 3-2 comeback victory over the United States at the Four Nations Cup in Kamloops, B.C. “Yeah, it was really special,” said Krzyzaniak, whose team faces Finland in tonight’s semifinals. “It was a really good time to get your first point, that’s for sure, especially against the Americans in a tight game like that. … I was probably more thrilled that we scored, but being in on it was pretty great, too.” At the age of 19, Krzyzaniak is the youngest defenceman on the team and is on the fast track to being an Olympian one day.

• Brandon’s Cassie Hawrysh showed what kind of fighter she is on Thursday at the Canadian skeleton team trials in Calgary. The 30-year-old Neelin graduate, who has been battling a nagging foot problem, bounced back from a disappointing sixth-place finish in last weekend’s first race to place second on the final day of runs to determine Canada’s World Cup team. “I put down two runs today with some personal best pushes in both runs and the second run was just exactly what I needed to do, so what else can you ask for?” Hawrysh said from Calgary yesterday. While Hawrysh was the only women’s slider in the team trials who has previous World Cup experience, the national team selection committee chose to go with three younger racers to start the season on the World Cup, with Hawrysh beginning on the Intercontinental Cup tour.

• It’s hard to overstate just how impressive it is for three members of the Brandon Wheat Kings to be selected to serve as the captains of each of the three Canadian teams at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in Ontario. Regional rivalries and petty politics were put aside as Brandonite Tanner Kaspick (Canada White), fellow forward Nolan Patrick (Canada Red) and defenceman Kale Clague (Canada Black) were each recognized for their character and leadership abilities by being honoured with the ‘C’ this week. Clague, who leads all 16-year-old WHL defencemen in scoring with two goals and eight points in 15 games, is so highly regarded that TSN’s Craig Button ranks him second overall on his early list for the 2016 NHL draft, with Kaspick likely to be a top candidate in that year’s draft as well. For his part, Patrick is the top-scoring 16-year-old forward in the league with four goals and 12 points in 15 games and isn’t even eligible for the NHL draft until 2017 due to his late birthdate. Watch for him to be a lottery pick that year.

• Hard to argue with the success the Wheat Kings have had so far this season, after posting a superb 6-1 record on their gruelling seven-game, 11-day road trip, one of their best West Coast swings in years. Ranked fifth in the country, the Wheat Kings lead the Eastern Conference with a 14-3-1-0 record and ice a talented team that leads the league in scoring, is third in power play (27.0 per cent) and features a half-dozen players who went to NHL training camps this year plus a trio of top prospects for next year’s draft in Ivan Provorov, Ryan Pilon and Jesse Gabrielle.

One glaring weakness? Brandon’s penalty killing is the second-worst in the league at only 73.1 per cent, an area that needs addressing.

• Wheat Kings head coach/ general manager Kelly McCrimmon rarely comes out on the losing end of a trade and certainly did well again in solving his import logjam this week by trading Czech left-winger Richard Nejezchleb, 20, and keeping Latvian left-winger Rihards Bukarts, 19, and his Russian defenceman Provorov, 17. Bukarts (tied for fourth in WHL scoring with nine goals and 25 points in 16 games) and Provorov (tied for first in rookie scoring with eight goals and 19 points in 18 games) give the Wheat Kings their best pair of imports in years, but Nejezchleb is also an impact player as one of only 15 forwards in the league this year who scored 32 or more goals last season. Dealing Nejezchleb was tricky because he was a two-spotter — filling one of three overage spots and one of two import spots — but McCrimmon managed to pry a pair of third-round bantam draft picks out of the Tri-City Americans. The deal gives the Wheat Kings a pair of solid assets for the future and also keeps an overage spot open on the roster to possibly load up for a playoff run.