Powerful Silvertips dump Wheaties 4-1

The good news for the Brandon Wheat Kings is that barring a surprise trip to the Western Hockey League final, they’ve seen the last of the Everett Silvertips this season.

The Silvertips outscored the Wheat Kings 4-1 and outshot them 54-26 in a sometimes lopsided Friday night matchup at Angel of the Winds Arena.

Everett (35-6-2-1), the WHL’s top team, received goals from Rylan Gould, Zackary Shantz, Matias Vanhanen and Hunter Rudolph, while Jaxon Jacobson replied for Brandon (25-18-1-0) in front of a crowd of 6,419.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said his club didn’t give Everett much of a game in the first 40 minutes.

“I thought the first two periods were less than inspiring, to put it mildly,” Murray said. “We were pretty flat and they’re an excellent hockey team. They were skating and we were spectating for the first two periods. I thought in the third we pushed to create a little bit but it was too little too late.”

The pain came early for Brandon.

The Headingley product Gould opened the scoring three minutes two seconds in when he took the puck behind the net and beat Brandon goalie Jayden Kraus on the wrap-around.

Brandon was simply overwhelmed in the first 10 minutes, falling behind 1-0 and getting outshot 10-1.

Two seconds after they killed their first penalty, Shantz leaned into a backdoor shot that Kraus nearly made miraculous save on, but instead the Silvertips went up 2-0 midway through the frame.

After bending but not breaking in a lopsided second period, a failed clearing attempt ended up on the stick of Vanhanen with a clear path to the net and he fired a shot by Kraus with 15.3 seconds left in the period. By the end of the middle frame, Everett goalie Raiden LeGall of Morden had faced just nine shots, while the Silvertips had fired 39 at Kraus.

Brandon’s rush offence finally broke through 4:20 into the third period when Caleb Hadland got the puck to Luke Mistelbacher, and the overage forward fed Jacobson in the slot for a hard low shot to the glove side.

The goal sparked the Wheat Kings, who had sustained zone time in the Everett end for the next couple of shifts, which was the first time that had happened all evening.

Brandon had some looks on a power play, but with the teams back to even strength, LeGall made a great save on Gunnar Gleasman, the puck came back down the ice and, off the rush, Rudolph fired a shot into the top of the net to restore the three-goal lead with seven minutes remaining.

Both goalies faced contact in the last few minutes, with Brady Turko running into LeGall and 41 seconds later, Everett’s 16-year-old star defenceman Landon DuPont hitting Kraus. Brandon’s netminder was down for a while and the second massive scrum in a minute ensued.

Brandon pulled Kraus for an extra attacker to go on a 5-on-3, and for 18 seconds actually had a highly unusual 6-on-3, but weren’t able to beat LeGall again.

“You can’t play for 12 or 13 minutes and expect to win a hockey game,” Murray said.

Kraus, who Murray singled out for praise, made 50 saves for the Wheat Kings, with the Morden product LeGall stopping 24 shots for the Silvertips.

Brandon went 0-for-5 on the power play, with Everett unsuccessful in four chances.

ICINGS: Brandon skated without injured D Merrek Arpin D Daniil Skvortsov, F Easton Odut, F Chase Surkan and F Carter Klippenstein, plus D Grayson Burzynski, who was serving the second game of a three-game suspension … Dylan Ronald was injured, leaving Brandon with five defencemen, including callup Ethan Young … Jacobson, Hadland and Joby Baumuller led the Wheat Kings with four shots each on net … The game took two hours, 28 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Everett won 34-26 … The Wheat Kings visit the Portland Winterhawks on Saturday at p.m. CST.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com