U18 Wheaties welcome chase in second half

The Brandon Wheat Kings aren’t used to not seeing their name at the top of the league standings, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

The Wheaties have led the Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League standings as the top-seeded club the past four seasons but find themselves in a different position this year going into the Christmas break in fourth place with a 19-6-1 record, 10 points back of the league-leading Winnipeg Wild.

Head coach Travis Mealy admitted while it’s unfamiliar territory for his club, he’d rather hunt than be the hunted.

“We’re definitely chasing a little bit this year as opposed to other years, but I think it’ll serve us well, I think, in the long term,” said Mealy. “If you look at previous years where we haven’t played well and we’ve come out of the game with a win, we don’t always learn from that, especially at this age, it’s tough to see the silver lining a little bit when our guys just see the two points and think they played well. This year, we haven’t been getting those wins, and we’ve been coming up short, and we’d be better off from that coming into March.

“I’d rather not get first and rather chase it a little bit.”

Mealy’s preference can mainly be pointed toward last year’s Wild squad, who had a slow start in the first half of the season and then flipped a switch after Christmas break, winning 22 consecutive games heading into the postseason. After sweeping the Interlake Lightning in three games, Winnipeg went through an absolute wear and tear of a series with their rival Bruins in the second round but found a way to climb out of it with an all-or-nothing win in a best-of-five series.

They kept that moment going into the championships against Brandon, who looked overwhelmed throughout most of a series that didn’t last very long, as the Wild swept the Wheat Kings following a Ludovic Perreault overtime winner to give his club its ninth banner since the 2012-13 season.

“They (Wild) had an absolute war of a series against the Bruins, and then we had a little bit more of a leisure route to the finals, and you could tell they were just ready to go and we weren’t, so that was the difference. By the time things were starting to turn and guys were actually getting engaged in the war, the series was already over and we got swept.”

Mealy’s hope is with a different path to the postseason, Brandon can be back on top like it was during the 2023-24 season, when they defeated the Wild in the final to take home the championship en route to a runner-up placement at the Telus Cup after losing 4-1 to the Magog Cantonniers in the final in Membertou, N.S.

The good news for the Wheaties is they’ve still managed to put up impressive numbers despite the injury bug they’ve had all year. Up until its back-to-back set in Kenora against the Thistles late last month, Brandon hasn’t had a healthy lineup since training camp. Guys have suffered from the injury bug or even the flu, which manages to take numbers out during this time of year, but they’ve still managed to stay near the top of a 13-team league.

The Wheat Kings are currently riding an eight-game winning streak where they’ve outgunned their opponents 43-11 going into their contest tonight against the Southwest Cougars, who sit two points back of Brandon with one more game played. Brandon hasn’t played a game in over a week after Wednesday and last night’s games against the Winnipeg Thrashers and Parkland Rangers were postponed due to the gruelling weather conditions surrounding Westman, but the league has yet to pull the plug on this evening’s tilt.

If they do end up hitting the ice, Mealy is hoping his club will start reinforcing the ideas he and the rest of his coaching staff have been trying to instil among the group — which is being harder to play against.

“The thing with that is just being more consistent,” he said. “I feel like somewhere down the line, we’ve become a bunch of skilled perimeter players that still need to be hard to play against. There’s no one second-guessing the skill on the team, it’s just whether or not we want to get to the hard areas, and that’s kind of what we’ve mainly been preaching in the last couple of months is to start playing with a little bit of edge and some compete. It’s maybe something that we’ve lacked in the past.”

Mealy believes a lot of that starts with eliminating a lot of the flow drills and the non-contact drills and integrating more competitive man-on-man training so it becomes muscle memory when it’s time to hit the sheet against another team. Another is having a strong mindset of wanting to bang and crash the net for rebounds, wanting to finish that extra check down low, and diving out for that extra blocked shot when it counts.

That mindset, Mealy said, carries over directly to the penalty kill, where structure, contact and sacrifice are non-negotiable. Their penalty kill stands around the middle of the pack with an 83.7 per cent success rate, but where their specialty teams really shine is the power play, which is top three in the league at 31.4 per cent.

To no surprise, the Wheat Kings man advantage has been in the top echelon for more than a handful of years due to the elite talent on each unit, and this year’s no different. With star forwards like Reid Nicol, Hudson Champagne, and Jaxson Brick, and then Easten Turko on the backend quarterbacking the play, there’s always a chance the puck will end up in the back of your net. It’s no doubt been a difference maker for this team and will continue to be going into the second half of the season.

A big piece of that engine is Nicol, who has eight tallies on the man advantage to go along with 15 at even strength and 35 points overall. The 15-year-old has been a revelation for this club in all areas of the ice, but especially when it comes to scoring, as he leads his team in points.

In addition to the Wheat Kings, he also reached another milestone in his young career after he made his debut for the Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League on Wednesday night, which saw him go five-for-seven in the face-off dot in a 3-2 victory over the Wenatchee Wild. Everett drafted him fifth overall in the 2025 WHL draft.

Close behind Nicol on the offensive production side is second-year blue-liner Turko, who is second in team scoring with seven goals and 34 points through 23 games. The 16-year-old has been a versatile weapon for the Wheat Kings, logging heavy minutes and playing in just about every situation. The prospect of the WHL Wheat Kings is the leader of that defensive corps.

A player who has also been a big driving force in Brandon’s offence and has exceeded all expectations this season is freshman Kevin Knee. The five-foot-six, 135-pound forward was selected by Mealy because of his offensive upside, and he’s proved his coach right with 12 goals and 31 points, which is the third highest among his team, behind Nicol and Turko.

“That is 100 per cent the reason why we took him,” Mealy said. “He’s an extremely offensive player that has a high IQ and high skill level. Obviously not the biggest player out on the ice, but when he has the puck, you’re never worried for him injury-wise. Obviously, there are parts of his game that he needs to work on, but he does work hard, he listens and he’s extremely coachable.”

He’s not the only freshman who’s stood out so far, though.

Netminders Urijah Moosetail — who’s coming out of U17 — and Cooper Dryden — who’s coming out of U15 — have also played key parts in the Wheat Kings success, giving them steady and consistent play between the pipes on any given night.

“Moose has been everything we’ve needed him to be,” said Mealy. “He’s been a good mentor for Coop, and we needed to have a big year this year. He’s so calm and collected, and he gives a sense of assurance amongst our boys.

“Coop’s been really good too. He’s got an extremely high ceiling and skill level, and it’s been around six years since we’ve taken a 15-year-old goalie. It’s an extremely hard position to make at 15, but he’s played well, and it’s only a matter of time before he settles in and his numbers start to climb.”

Moosetail carries a 13-2 record to go along with a 1.86 goals against and a .931 save percentage, while Dryden’s notched a 6-4 record with a 2.79 GAA and .891 save percentage.

“I think we’re extremely well-rounded,” Mealy said. “I don’t feel like there is a hole or a void that we need to fill. We have top-end forwards, we have scoring, we have depth, a well-rounded back end and two goalies that have been phenomenal for us this year.

“I completely love our team, and I think if we just figure out the grit and the tenacity, I think it could be something special this year.”

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com