Brandon chases historic accomplishment

If the battered Brandon Wheat Kings can pull one more rabbit out of the hat, they could make a little bit of team history tonight.

The Prince George Cougars are the sixth and final B.C. Division squad to visit Assiniboine Credit Union Place this year, and the Wheat Kings have a 5-0-0-0 record so far.

They’ve only been perfect against a Western Conference division one other time, when they posted a 5-0-0-0 record against the U.S. Division in 2002-03.

Rookie defenceman Cameron Allard of Yorkton, Sask., who has three goals in his last seven games and is now sitting at 13 points in 51 games, said it would be a nice achievement to sweep the B.C. Division at home.

“That would be really cool,” Allard said. “This is a storied franchise and to set that history would be unbelievable.”

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray chuckled when he heard the stat, noting it would be great, but two points are the real focus.

“At this point of the season, any win is a win,” Murray said. “You’ll take anything. For us, it’s more just having a win, and we can reflect on something like that down the road.”

If you want to further tempt the fates, the only other time the Wheat Kings went into the final game with a shot at going unbeaten against one of the western divisions was in 2017-18 when the Cougars beat them 3-2 on Feb. 2, 2018.

Brandon is 8-3-0-0 against Western Conference opponents this season, with a 3-3 record on the road against the U.S. Division teams and a perfect 5-0 at home, beating the Vancouver Giants 4-3 on Oct. 10, the Kamloops Blazers 6-3 on Oct. 16, the Kelowna Rockets 6-3 on Dec. 12, the Victoria Royals 6-1 on Jan. 16, and the Penticton Vees 4-0 last Friday.

“One of the things we’ve talked about is focusing on our game,” Murray said. “You know the other personnel and their tendencies, but I think it’s a good opportunity to reflect on our identity, and against those teams I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.

“When you get into the divisional games, when you see a team a lot, it’s a little bit more of a chess match, while here you’re relying on our game a little bit more.”

Overage defenceman Grayson Burzynski of Winnipeg, who has 53 points in 51 games this season, including a pair of assists in Brandon’s 8-4 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings, said the lack of familiarity does have its benefits.

“Maybe that’s it,” Burzynski said. “We do a pre-scout, but Marty is like, ‘We don’t know much about them, we play them once, just go play hard.’ I think that’s what we’ve been doing, we don’t really think about it.

“When we play the Prince Alberts and some of them, we think, ‘They’re good, they’ve beat so-and-so and so-and-so.’ We don’t think about them (B.C. teams), we just go play our game. We just play the way we need to play, and it works.”

Fifth-place Brandon (34-22-1-0), which officially booked a playoff spot when the Moose Jaw Warriors lost on Saturday, is three points back of the fourth-place Calgary Hitmen, who have two games in hand. The sixth-place Saskatoon Blades are five points behind the Wheat Kings and have played one more game.

“We have a big board in our room, and we’re looking at the standings,” Allard said. “It’s not dictating how we play at all, we come out to play for ourselves every night, but we definitely watch and when we win and some other teams maybe lose, it’s always nice.”

Meanwhile, Prince George is third in the Western Conference with a record of 34-20-2-0, one point up on the Kelowna Rockets. Since second-place Penticton is 10 points ahead of the Cougars and the fifth-place Kamloops Blazers are eight points back, Prince George and Kelowna are likely in a two-team battle for positioning at this point.

If Brandon and Prince George were in the same division, they would be battling for playoff positioning since the Cougars lead the Wheat Kings by one point.

“They’re a good team,” Murray said. “Their record is just a little bit better than ours, and just like us, they’re jockeying for position in the playoffs. They have some really good depth, they have (Terik) Parascak and (Carson) Carels, who are special, but they have five 20-goal scorers, so it’s spread out pretty good, and they have their big goalie (Joshua Ravensbergen) too.

‘We’re going to have to have the same focus we had the past weekend with two really good teams coming in.”

Prince George has won the first two games of its East Division swing, beating the Swift Current Broncos 6-2 on Friday and Moose Jaw 4-2 on Saturday.

After tonight, their trip continues against the Regina Pats on Wednesday, the Saskatoon Blades on Friday, and the Prince Albert Raiders on Saturday.

They don’t play at home again until the Spokane Chiefs visit Prince George on March 6.

While Prince George should have everybody available — at least according to the league’s last weekly report — Brandon continues to battle terrible injury problems.

Forwards Carter Klippenstein and Easton Odut are done for the year, as is defenceman Merrek Arpin.

Rookie forward Chase Surkan had his anticipated return to the lineup on the weekend delayed until tonight out of an abundance of caution for his lower-body injury — “If it was a playoff game, he would have been playing,” Murray said — while defenceman Dylan Ronald is now practising and may also suit up.

Forwards Caleb Hadland and Joby Baumuller remain longer-term propositions with their upper-body injuries. Even so, the short-staffed Wheat Kings have won their last six games, with three victories coming against teams in the top five in the Western Hockey League.

“I think we’re just having fun,” Burzynski said. “It feels like that run we went on in December. Things are kind of working out for us, we’re getting some bounces as well. We kind of have to, especially when we have four of our top forwards out. Our goalies are playing exceptionally well, like Filip with the 47-save shutout the other night.

“I think our D corps is playing the best it has all season. We’re breaking pucks out really well and spending a lot less time in our zone. Things are just coming together.”

Allard also likes how his group has responded.

“Everyone is buying in,” Allard said. “You’re missing key guys like Joby and Hads, Hads is our captain, and Joby is a 30-goal scorer. Missing those guys obviously hurts, but everyone has to come together to pick up their slack almost because they’re gone, and I think we’ve been doing a really good job of that.”

The Wheat Kings have two games left on their current six-game home stand, with the Regina Pats visiting on Friday at 7 p.m., and the Medicine Hat Tigers making their final regular season journey to Brandon on Wednesday, March 4.

The puck drops tonight at 7.

ICINGS: Ruzicka’s 47-stop effort on Friday against Penticton set a new Brandon record in the Internet era for most saves in a shutout, eclipsing the previous mark of 40 shared by Jiri Patera on Oct. 4, 2019, and Corbin Boes on March 2, 2011.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com