Hadland scores twice in Wheaties win

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This article was published 14/03/2025 (188 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Caleb Hadland scored twice as the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors 4-1 in Western Hockey League action at Westoba Place on Friday.

Brandon (35-22-4-3) received its other goals from Jordan Gavin and Luke Shipley, with Krzysztof Macias replying for Moose Jaw (14-43-5-2) in front of a crowd of 3,301.

The teams meet again tonight in Moose Jaw at 8 p.m. CDT.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said a win is a win is a win regardless of how they look.

“They’re all huge this time year,” Murray said. “I don’t know what’s going on in the other games but we’ve said it all along that whenever we win, we’re in control of our own destiny and don’t have to rely on other teams to help us out. It wasn’t pretty at times, but we’ll take the two points.”

Brandon opened the scoring one minute 35 seconds into the game with a strange one.

The Wheat Kings were on the attack when Roger McQueen got tangled up with Moose Jaw goalie Josh Banini as he skated after the puck. The netminder was laying on the ice when Hadland fired a shot over him from the slot for what proved to be his 24th goal.

The four referees met near the penalty box, and two were dispatched to each bench to explain their ruling to the coaches in what was judged to be a good goal.

“I don’t remember what happened to the goalie but he just wasn’t there,” Hadland said with a chuckle. “It was in my feet so I scrambled to get it on net and just flubbed one in.”

Brandon had the first power play, and while they gave up more shots than they took, the Wheat Kings nearly scored moments after it finished. The puck bounced off the post in front and Moose Jaw defenceman Brady Ness stuck out his skate to deny Brandon forward Dominik Petr for the best save of the first 10 minutes.

At the other end, Brandon goalie Carson Bjarnason stopped a partial breakaway and a two-on-one in quick succession.

Moose Jaw roared to life as the period went on, hitting a crossbar and then a post with the puck dribbling dangerously behind Bjarnason before it was cleared to safety by callup defenceman Cam Allard.

For the 10th time in their last 11 games, the Wheat Kings were outshot in the opening frame, 14-9, in what might charitably be called a sloppy period.

“We were kind of inconsistent through the night,” Murray said. “The first eight minutes I thought we played pretty well but after that as a group, the switch went off and we got pretty sloppy in the last half of the first period.”

The Wheat Kings came out with a little more focus in the second period.

After an icing on a Moose Jaw power play to start the middle frame, Nolan Flamand and Hadland both made second efforts to corral the puck, and Hadland fired a shot over Banini’s shoulder for his second goal of the night and a 2-0 Brandon lead.

“Flam won the draw on the PK, and I was behind him,” Hadland said. “I just gripped it and ripped it.”

The Wheat Kings began to forecheck ferociously, with the Warriors struggling to even get the puck of their zone in one long stretch. It actually took the visitors 10:40 to get their first shot on net.

The Wheat Kings began to flirt with disaster by taking back-to-back penalties, and the second one cost them when Macias sailed between a pair of Brandon defenceman and fired the puck over Bjarnason’s shoulder on a short breakaway to make it 2-1.

By the end of the penalty-filled frame, Brandon had outshot its visitors 17-5 and held a 26-19 edge in the game in what had been two very different periods.

The teams traded chances in a more wide open and even third period, with Brandon taking a two-goal lead at the 10:16 mark when Gavin intercepted an ill-advised pass into the middle by Dominik Pavlik and fired a shot that trickled under Banini’s arm into the net.

Macias nearly scored his second goal two minutes later when he sent a pass to the slot that Brandon captain Quinn Mantei mistakenly deflected off the post, but the puck stayed out.

Moose Jaw pulled Banini for the extra attacker with 3:07 remaining. After a couple of long distance shots that were easily handled by Bjarnason, he made his best save when he caught the puck on a screened shot by defenceman Aiden Ziprick of Russell.

The Wheat Kings gave up five shots before Shipley finally got the insurance goal to make it 4-1 when he skipped a puck into the net from the boards near the Brandon blue-line with 82 seconds remaining.

“We bounced back after the first,” Hadland said. “We had a little hiccup there in the first period but after that things started to pick up and we started to get pucks on net. It wasn’t perfect but two points are two points.”

Murray said the Warriors also played a huge factor in how tight the game was.

“I thought the second was better but we didn’t score on our opportunities,” Murray said. “In a tight game, you have to give credit to Moose Jaw. They’re a non-playoff team but they worked hard and gave us a tough game. It was a big goal by Gavin in the third to stretch it out to 3-1. I didn’t love it but I’ll take the wins this time of year.”

Brandon went 0-for-6 on the power play, with Moose Jaw scoring once in three chances.

“We had some good movement at times, but it seemed were a little perimeter, moving it around the outside,” Murray said of his power play. “I think each unit when they were out stayed out there for about a minute 40 because they moved it around the outside and didn’t generate a lot on the inside.”

Bjarnason made 32 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Banini stopping 30 shots for the Warriors.

Moose Jaw head coach Mark O’Leary liked much of his team’s game.

“I thought for the goal we gave up early on, I was proud of the group and the way we responded,” O’Leary said. “Sometimes when bad things happen it’s easy to go into a shell but I thought we pushed back pretty well. Our special teams were pretty good, although we would have liked more from our power play.

“At the end of the day, I thought we had enough scoring chances to win. We had some turnovers we didn’t like but we liked our game overall.”

ICINGS: Brandon skated without injured F Easton Odut, F Jaxon Jacobson, F Ben Binder Nord and D Merrek Arpin, plus D Adam Belusko, who remains in Slovakia dealing with an academic requirement … McQueen led the Wheat Kings with seven shots on net as he continues to round into form after missing five months … The game took two hours, 22 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Moose Jaw won 34-26 … Overage defenceman Ben Saunderson of Carberry will make his final regular season visit to Westoba Place on Wednesday with the Saskatoon Blades, and the Wheat Kings finish up the regular season with a home-and-home against the Regina Pats on Friday in Brandon and Saturday at Brandt Centre.

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