Wheat Kings, Cougars on differing paths after quarterfinal series

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This article was published 14/03/2022 (1578 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Carter Dittmer’s shot slid through the five-hole of Owen LaRocque and into the back of the net on Saturday evening at the J&G Homes Arena, it sent the Brandon Wheat Kings and Southwest Cougars boys’ under-18 programs in opposite directions.

For the Wheat Kings, their 4-3 overtime triumph gave them a clean sweep of the best-of-five Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League quarterfinal series and has put the regular season champions into a semifinal matchup with the fifth-seeded Parkland Rangers, which gets underway on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. in Brandon.

“We definitely had to play some playoff hockey in this series,” Wheat Kings head coach Curtis Brolund said. “Southwest has some great goaltending and they play a real physical game, so this was a great warmup for us and we learned a ton going forward to the semifinal.”

“Everyone in the dressing room knew that this wasn’t going to be easy,” Dittmer added. “We left it all on the ice and we got the job done. Our goaltending was great, we got a lot of shots on their goalie and we made sure that we made a lot of hits, which is all things we needed to do against Southwest.”

Meanwhile, the Cougars are now off until Thursday, April 28, which is when they will host the 2022 Telus Cup Western Regional Championship tournament in Virden.

For head coach Troy Leslie, a lengthy layoff before a regional championship is something he’s dealt with before.

Back in 2000 – when he served as an assistant coach for the Cougars under Del Pedrick – the Cougars were eliminated in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs by the Eastman Selects but rebounded to reach the then-named Air Canada Cup Wester Regional final in Souris, where they lost to the Saskatoon Contacts.

“There’s a lot of things I can take from that experience towards this year and I’m going to be talking with some other coaches to see how they’ve approached things with a long layoff like this,” Leslie said.

“We’re still sorting everything out, but we’re going to take a good chunk of time off here to let these guys reflect on this series and have a bit of rest before we get back on the ice in Souris for the five- to six-week stretch until our first game in Virden.”

Although an opening round sweep wasn’t what the Cougars had envisioned when the playoffs got underway, Leslie believes the experience of facing the top ranked team in the provincial under-18 AAA circuit will help them out a lot going forward.

“With the (COVID-19) pandemic, these guys have missed out on having playoff experiences during the last two years,” Leslie said. “This is going to serve them really well, not just when we host regionals, but when our young guys come back for next season.

“I thought we got better as the series went on. Brandon brought it to us in Game 1 with their speed and pressure. They turned it up a notch from the regular season and we didn’t handle it well.”

As the Cougars tried to get their bearings underneath them, they were helped by the stellar play of LaRocque in between the pipes, as the future Virden Oil Capital stopped 106 shots during the series.

“I know he’d like that last goal back in overtime, but we wouldn’t be where we are without Owen,” Leslie said after Game 3, where the Cougars held a 3-1 lead until the midway mark of the third period when the Wheat Kings scored a pair of goals in a 77-second span.

“We would have loved to have brought this series back to Souris for Game 4 and I thought our guys were deserving of a better fate in this last game. There have been times this year where we’ve held a two-goal late and we’ve been able to close things out, and there have been times where we’ve blown those leads. That’s one of those things that happens when you have a young team and there are some things that we’re going to work on from this experience during our time off.”

Captain Jayce Thompson and Kelowna Rockets draft pick Luke MacKenzie had two points each for the Cougars in the series, with blue-liners Brett Laing and Josh Fluker matching that total.

In eliminating Southwest from the post-season with his overtime marker Saturday, Dittmer moved into a tie with fellow forward Clarke Caswell for the Wheat Kings’ playoff scoring lead with five points.

“Carter’s been awesome for us all year, but he’s just been getting better and better over the last couple of months,” Brolund said.

“He’s consistently one of our hardest workers and he just quietly goes about his business on the ice. It’s nice to see him get rewarded with a big goal.”

Nolan Chastko, Braden Keeble, Calder Crossin and Luke Lepper had four points each against the Cougars, while Mason Lobreau made 75 saves.

The series also featured one of the most bizarre events in recent memory as Friday’s contest was stopped after 30 minutes due to a Zamboni issue.

The Wheat Kings had a 3-2 lead when the game was called off and eventually restarted the following night.

“I looked at it as a situation where our guys got another 30 minutes of playoff experience, which I think served us well when we got back playing,” Leslie said. “We actually did pretty well on Friday before the game was stopped and we carried that into Saturday.”

“I’m not sure I could really describe the roller coaster we all went through during that but the fans sure got a fantastic game to make up for that,” Brolund added. “To be honest, we tried to treat it like just another game day. We made sure that we all got our rest and went into our regular routines beforehand.”

Although the Wheat Kings head into their semifinal matchup with the Rangers with three wins in their four regular season meetings, they know the Dauphin-based side will present a tough challenge.

“Parkland’s a really strong team who are a little more offensively-minded than Southwest,” Brolund said. “It’s going to be a really interesting matchup.

“We know that any team we face from here on in is going to bring their best effort,” Dittmer said. “We’re going to have to show them what we’ve got as we try and reach our goal of bringing a trophy back here.”

Following Sunday’s opener in Brandon, the two sides will square off at Credit Union Place in Dauphin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 25 before heading back to the J&G Homes Arena at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 27.

If needed, a fourth game would be held in Swan River on Friday, April 1 at 7:30 p.m., with a fifth and deciding contest taking place in Brandon at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 3.

The other best-of-five semifinal series between the second-ranked Winnipeg Wild and the third-seeded Eastman Selects begins Sunday at the Bell MTS Iceplex.

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