Wheat Kings even series at two games apiece

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This article was published 29/03/2018 (2814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DAUPHIN — The Brandon Wheat Kings evened their Western Hockey League Eastern Conference quarter-final series on Wednesday with a 5-2 victory over the Medicine Hat Tigers at Credit Union Place in Dauphin.

The win knots the best-of-seven series at 2-2, with Game 5 set for Friday in Medicine Hat at 8:30 p.m.

Daniel Bukac, Stelio Mattheos, Cole Reinhardt, Linden McCorrister and Gunnar Wegleitner each scored their first goal of the playoffs for Brandon, with Josh Williams and Mark Rassell replying for Medicine Hat.

“It was a critical pair of games,” Brandon head coach David Anning said. “They held serve on home ice and we had to do the same. I thought our guys were focused. It was a big win last night and I thought we reset nicely and had the right approach to the game here today and I thought that it allowed us to have a really good start to the hockey game.”

The game couldn’t have started much better for Brandon.

After dominating the early part of the first period, the Wheat Kings gained momentum from a successful penalty kill.

Then Ben McCartney worked hard to gain possession of the puck and passed it to Gunnar Wegleitner. The 19-year-old forward sent a pass out front and Bukac one-timed it by Medicine Hat starting goalie Michael Bullion. The goal came 72 seconds after the Tigers power play ended.

It didn’t take long for the Wheat Kings to extend the lead.

Mattheos flew down the wing and wired a shot over Bullion’s shoulder 71 seconds after the first goal.

“It feels good,” Mattheos said. “It’s a bit of a monkey off my back. When you’re not scoring you just try to do everything else in your game as best you could and have faith that it will come. Obviously it was a relief and a big win.”

The Wheat Kings made it 3-0 — the same deficit they trailed by in Games 1 and 2 in Medicine Hat — when Reinhardt dove to knock in a rebound during his team’s second power play of the game.

The Tigers came close to getting on the board during back-to-back power plays in the second period. The puck trickled behind Brandon goalie Dylan Myskiw and lay near the goal-line, with a Tigers forward trying to push it in.

Bukac put his body between a Tigers forward and the goal and then swept the puck to safety.

But the penalty killing seemed to change the game’s momentum, which had largely been with Brandon.

Medicine Hat scored on a broken play 17 seconds after the second power play ended, when the puck landed in the slot and Williams turned and slapped a shot into the corner of the net.

The Wheat Kings responded early in the third period on a terrific individual effort by McCorrister, who has been one of his team’s most consistent players through four games in the series.

The Peguis product intercepted a pass while forechecking alone in the Medicine Hat end and slipped a shot under Bullion to make it 4-1 three minutes in.

“I was in the corner and they went D to D and I got above their guys and the puck came straight to me,” McCorrister said. 

It proved to be an important goal, because three minutes later Rassell pounced on a Brandon turnover for his fifth goal of the series.

With the tide having turned Medicine Hat’s way, Wegleitner put the dagger in their comeback hopes when he skated down the middle of the ice through four Tigers and lifted the puck over Bullion’s glove hand to restore the three-goal lead with 10 minutes remaining.

“When I first started coming up the ice I saw Connor (Gutenberg) on the far side and he was yelling ‘Dump it in, dump it in.’ I took another look at the opening I had and everybody just kind of started skating away so I took my ice and went down, and luckily enough, I got my shot off as quick as I could.”

Myskiw made 38 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Hollett stopping 31 shots for the Tigers.

“I’m feeling good right now,” Myskiw said. “I’m feeling confident. Those two first playoff games I got into those a little bit and that got me into the groove for these last two games.”

Brandon went 1-for-2 on the power play, with Medicine Hat unsuccessful in five chances.

“I thought we got better in the second and third,” Medicine Hat coach Shaun Clouston said. “The scoreboard din’t really show that but I thought we played really well. For some reason, our start was real sluggish. They were all over us and we didn’t have a ton of momentum. It took us to the first period intermission to refocus and get going.”

ICINGS: Baron Thompson served the third game of his three-game suspension for kneeing in Game 1. Brandon was without injured F Jonny Hooker, G Logan Thompson, and healthy scratch D Ty Ettinger …Medicine Hat scratched F James Hamblin (broken wrist, out for playoffs), D Dylan MacPherson (leg injury after Thompson hit, week-to-week), D Trevor Longo (injured arm on Tuesday), F Mason Shaw (out all season with leg injury) and F Dawson Heathcote (healthy scratch) … The teams return to Dauphin for Game 6 on Sunday at 7 p.m. … Attendance in Dauphin on Wednesday was 1,271 … Brandon won 32 of 70 faceoffs, led by Mattheos, who went 13-for-22.

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