Wheat Kings complete perfect pre-season

The Brandon Wheat Kings completed a second consecutive unbeaten pre-season with a 3-1 victory over the Regina Pats at Brandt Centre on Saturday in the Western Hockey League pre-season finale for both clubs.

Brandon (4-0-0-0) received its goals from Joby Baumuller, Nick Johnson and Carter Klippenstein as the Wheat Kings ran their pre-season unbeaten streak to nine games over three years, with Braxton Whitehead replying for Regina (2-3-0-0).

Brandon general manager and head coach Marty Murray said his club, which beat the Pats 5-3 on Friday at Westoba Place, showed some nice signs of growth in the four games.

“Any time you go out there, your objective is to win a hockey game,” Murray said. “The last three games we won, we went into the third period tied and found a way to win a hockey game, and that’s life in the Western Hockey League. There are a lot of close games that are decided on one or two big plays in the third period, so it’s nice for us to pass that test and help our young kids understand what it takes to win in a full 60-minute game.”

They also beat the Saskatoon Blades twice, 4-2 at home on Sept. 6 and 6-3 on the road on Sept. 8. Murray said his group came a long way in those four games.

“I thought we got better in a lot of areas,” Murray said. “We talked about shots on goal. The first game we gave up 40, and then we gave up 27, 16 and 23 tonight. To be under 25 consistently isn’t easy but we certainly don’t want to be up over that 33 mark. As a team, we did a decent job of that. “There are obviously areas we need to improve on but I think that’s a good starting point. A focus for us is keeping the puck out of the net.”

After the teams traded two power plays each in the first eight minutes, the first goal finally came 15 minutes 14 seconds into the opening frame when Brandon rookie defenceman Giorgos Pantelas sent Baumuller in on a breakaway with a stretch pass. The second-year forward came across the crease and tucked the puck between the legs of Regina goalie Kelton Pyne for his first goal of the pre-season.

The Wheat Kings were fortunate to go to the dressing room with a lead. The Wheat Kings turned over the puck at their own blue-line with a minute remaining, and Brandon goalie Dylan McFadyen denied Whitehead on a breakaway with his glove.

Brandon had an excellent chance to extend the lead four minutes into the middle frame when Regina took a double minor for high sticking, but the visitors managed just one shot and never seriously threatened.

Later in the period, McFadyen was bowled over by Pats forward Sam Oremba and was down for a time, but stayed in the game as the Wheat Kings went to another power play. Pyne made a sensational pad save on Rylen Roersma’s shot from the slot to keep the game within a goal.

That was important because Brandon took a late penalty, and with 54 seconds remaining in the middle frame, Whitehead was left all alone on a two-on-one after a Wheat Kings defenceman stumbled and had a tap-in on the back post on a feed from Brandonite Cole Temple.

The Wheat Kings re-established the lead with 7:26 remaining in the third period when Johnson was set up off a broken play on the rush by Nolan Flamand and wristed a shot past Pyne. And then with 2:32 remaining, Klippenstein went in on a long breakaway and made the same move as Baumuller, tucking the puck between Pyne’s legs to put Brandon up a pair.

“It was a little bit of an ugly game but I just liked our resilience,” Murray said. “We killed a couple of big penalties and we scored some timely goals. It was a big goal by Nick Johnson.

“Ironically, the three guys who scored tonight have worked pretty hard and it was nice to see them get rewarded for their hard work. Baumuller has had a real good pre-season and if you look at his line, he has one goal in four games but if you’ve watched him close, he’s had a real good pre-season. It’s nice for him to get the monkey off his back on the first one.

“Johnson has played well and it was nice for him to score the game-winning goal at a big time in the game, and then Klipper is one of those guys who you know what you’re going to get every night and it’s nice for him to get rewarded with a big goal to seal it.”

McFadyen made 22 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Pyne stopping 23 shots for the Pats. It was McFadyen’s third start in a row, which happened because Ethan Eskit suffered a minor injury in practice earlier in the week. The 16-year-old goaltender, who is expected to serve as the team’s emergency third goalie while playing under-18 AAA hockey, posted an .891 save percentage and 2.57 goals-against average in his three-game WHL debut.

“He passed the test for sure,” Murray said. “The plan was for Eskit to maybe play tonight but he’s got a minor injury to deal with so McFadyen got the call for the third straight game and was real comfortable and stopped breakaways, two-on-ones and made a couple of big saves. He has shown he can play in the league. There are still fundamental things he needs to work on in techniques but I thought he played really well for a young man who hasn’t had any minutes in the league prior to a week ago.”

Brandon went 0-for-5 on the power play, with Regina scoring once in four chances.

After taking Sunday off, the team has four days of practice before opening the regular season against the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday.

“It goes in stages,” Murray said. “There is a lot of work in the off-season, and then the excitement of camp and then you can’t wait to get into games against opponents in pre-season and then ultimately when they count in the standings. We’re looking forward to it. It’s the rigours of a junior hockey season. “It’s fun, it’s enjoyable and we’re all looking forward to the chance to play for real.”

ICINGS: The Wheat Kings reassigned 17-year-old defenceman Emerson Clark to the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Flin Flon Bombers on Saturday to bring them down to 10 blue-liners. The pan is to keep eight … Brandon forward Roger McQueen left the game in the second period for precautionary reasons … Brandon skated without pro campers G Carson Bjarnason, D Charlie Elick and F Marcus Nguyen, injured forwards Easton Odut and Dominik Petr and healthy scratches D Seth Tansem and D Nigel Boehm. As a result, Brandon dressed seven defencemen and 11 forwards for the second night in a row … Luke Shipley, Baumuller and Caleb Hadland led the Wheat Kings with three shots each on net … Adam Belusko and Caleb Hadland were on the ice for all three Brandon goals and posted a plus-minus of +3 … The game took two hours, 13 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Brandon won 34-26.

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