Pats rally to beat Wheat Kings 6-3

The Brandon Wheat Kings took an early two-goal lead but it was all Regina Pats after that as the visitors earned a 6-3 victory in Western Hockey League action at Assiniboine Credit Union Place on Saturday.

Regina (12-20-4-1) received two goals from Keets Fawcett and overage defenceman Ephram McNutt, and singles from Jace Egland and Zachary Lansard, with Dylan Ronald, Nigel Boehm and Joby Baumuller replying for Brandon (22-16-1-0) in front of a crowd of 3,501.

“I thought we played all right in the first and then there was a give-up from the group, I guess,” captain Caleb Hadland said. “They just started to (out)work us and pucks weren’t going in their net but they were going in ours. I guess you could say lucky bounces but it just wasn’t a good night overall.”

It was the fourth loss in a row for the reeling Wheat Kings.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said his team simply didn’t build on a good start.

“We came out and played hard out of the gate and got up two and they get one at the end of the first period, which was unfortunate, and they got some momentum,” Murray said. “The second period was obviously the turning point of the game. We were on our heels and took a couple of offensive zone penalties and they capitalized on one. We were second to pucks and Regina jammed it up in the neutral zone pretty good.

“There is one way to get through them, and that’s to get pucks behind them, and I thought in the first period we did a good job on the forecheck of turning pucks over and then we got away to playing as individuals and trying to dangle through people from the neutral zone and they did a good job of clamming it up.”

After some early back-and-forth action, Brandon opened the scoring four minutes 34 seconds in off the rush when Luke Mistelbacher found the trailer Ronald, who sent a low shot under Regina goalie Taylor Tabashniuk.

Four minutes later, Baumuller carried the puck into the Regina zone and sent a pass to the defenceman Boehm — who had jumped into the play and was all alone in the slot — and he beat Tabashniuk with a deke.

The Pats drew back within a goal 14 minutes into the opening frame despite the best efforts of Wheat Kings goalie Filip Ruzicka, who stopped Mathis Paull on a breakaway. The act of making the save put him out of position and Egland, who had taken a heavy hit earlier in the period that briefly knocked him out of commission, tapped in the rebound to make it 2-1.

The second period was an unmitigated disaster for the Wheat Kings, who were outshot 14-5 and outscored 4-1.

Regina tied the game 4:35 into the middle frame when the defenceman McNutt rushed the puck down the ice and his shot from the faceoff dot squeezed between the legs of Ruzicka for his career-high seventh goal. Just after Brandon killed the game’s first penalty, Wheat Kings forwards Hadland and Jaxon Jacobson had a two-man breakaway but were a little too deliberate, making an extra pass and failing to get a shot on net as the Regina defenders caught up to the play.

Murray said it was emblematic of problems in his team’s offence right now.

“It’s a big part of the game,” Murray said. “When you get a 2-on-0, we have to get a shot. There were a couple of times when guys had pucks in prime areas and bobbled it. “I’m sure everybody is frustrated. It’s hard right now, and when you’re in a funk and you’re in a slump individually, there’s one way to work our way of it, and that’s through hard work and buy-in. If you’re cutting corners and hoping, it very seldom works out for you.”

Soon after, Jacobson was flagged for slashing and McNutt blasted a shot into the net and the visitors gained their first lead.

Brandon tied the game five minutes later on their first power play when Baumuller leaned into a shot that Tabashniuk didn’t move on, but just two minutes after that, Ruzicka went out to play the puck and made the dubious decision to go across the zone with his pass, which was intercepted by Lansard for a quick shot into the empty net.

Incredibly, it’s the second time this season Ruzicka has handed Lansard an empty-net goal, with a similar play in an 8-5 Brandon victory on Nov. 1.

Then, with 1:27 left in the period, Fawcett put the puck in off the bar with a wicked shot from the slot, and the Pats were up 5-3.

Ruzicka was replaced by Jayden Kraus to start the third period, and his teammates went to power play almost immediately. But any hopes of establishing a comeback lay in ruins two minutes later.

“Seventeen seconds we got a power play to get ourselves back into the game and we didn’t get anything done,” Murray said. “To me, it would have been a good opportunity to set the tone, and a goal is obvious but just to get some momentum by some good zone pressure and some good zone touches but it was clear after clear (by Regina).”

Brandon, which managed just eight shots on net in a listless third period, pulled Kraus with 2:35 left and Fawcett lifted a long shot over everyone and into the net with 1:27 remaining to salt the game away.

“The second half of the season is always harder hockey and I think we’re stuck in the soft skill area of the game,” Hadland said. “We just need to bear down and get into the corners a little more and win our puck battles.”

Ruzicka and Kraus combined to make 30 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Tabashniuk stopping 21 shots for the Pats. Brandon went 1-for-1 on the power play, with Regina scoring once in two chances.

Regina head coach Brad Herauf said his group got better as the night went on.

“I thought we started off a little slow and built ourselves a 2-0 hole,” Herauf said. “We weren’t winning enough stick battles and we weren’t our feisty selves. I thought we got back to being our feisty selves in the second period and that was when the game turned a little bit for us.” Next week, the Wheat Kings visit the Prince Albert Raiders on Tuesday and the Saskatoon Blades on Wednesday, then they return to play the Victoria Royals on Friday. After that, they head out on the road for their annual West Coast, so the task certainly doesn’t get any easier.

“We have a tough schedule in January on the road and some tough opponents,” Hadland said. “We just need to go back to the basics and find our game and bear down and actually want to win.”

ICINGS: Brandon skated without injured D Merrek Arpin, F Easton Odut and D Grayson Burzynski (lower body), plus healthy scratch F Ryan Boyce … Baumuller led the Wheat Kings with four shots on net … The game took two hours, 20 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Brandon won 23-18. Rookie centre Prabh Bhathal went 6-for-8 at the dot.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com