By Les Lazaruk
It was another weekend evening that went totally against the Saskatoon Blades’ way…only this time, one team clinched a playoff spot at their expense and the other put the Bridge City Bunch on the brink of elimination.
Normally Brandon’s back-up goaltender, Dylan Myskiw stopped 29 of 31 shots to back-stop the Wheat Kings to a 4-2 victory over the Blue and Gold before 5,826 fans on “Suit Up with Don Cherry in support of the Kidney Foundation of Canada night.”
The victory clinched a playoff spot for Brandon. It was their third straight win, improving their record to 37-26-5 for 79 points and holding the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card post-season berth…three points back of Regina and four ahead of Prince Albert. The Raiders rallied to out-last Calgary 4-3 in overtime in P.A. The Raiders’ ninth straight victory gives them 75 points, seven more than the 32-32-4 Blades who have dropped six of their last seven outings. That means Prince Albert’s magic number to clinch a playoff spot is two…as in points. Any combination of points gained by the Raiders or lost by Saskatoon totalling two, boosts P.A. into the post-season and leaves the Bridge City Bunch on the outside for a fifth consecutive season.
Pressed into service for the third period Friday in a 6-3 home victory over Swift Current when 20-year-old number one netminder Logan Thompson suffered a Lower Body injury, 18-year-old Myskiw made several dazzling stops, including the front end of a game-changing, great save at one end-goal at the other end, exchange. Late in the second period, after Michael Farren to cut the Wheaties’ lead to 2-1, the Blades broke into the Brandon zone while short-handed. But, Winnipeg product Myskiw got his right pad on Gage Ramsay’s one-time shot off Kirby Dach’s cross-crease pass. Off the rebound, Caiden Daley sent Luka Burzan away on a breakaway and the 17-year-old was able to beat Nolan Maier with what turned out to be the winning goal.
“I don’t know how much more we could’ve done,” said Saskatoon head coach Dean Brockman. “The guys did everything they could I think, other than put the puck in the net. I’m really proud of them. After (Friday) night’s (5-4) loss in overtime (to Calgary), that’s a hard thing to do to come back and compete the way they did. The guys deserve a lot of credit. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win and that’s the downfall.”
Stelio Mattheos opened the scoring late in the first period with his 41st of the season and Linden McCorrister made it 2-0 in the second, roofing a shot off a 2-on-1 break. The Bridge City Bunch made the second half of the third period interesting when Josh Paterson tallied on a power play, but Myskiw and the Wheaties killed off another pair of Blue and Gold man advantages, off of “puck over glass” penalties, before Cole Reinhardt scored into an empty net with 17 seconds to play.
The Blades, who out-shot Brandon 31-16, make their way to Western Manitoba for a return matchup Tuesday. Then, it’s off to Swift Current Wednesday before the traditional season-ending home-and-home series with the Raiders. Friday in Prince Albert and Saturday at SaskTel Centre.
Pacman Points – With Thompson sidelined, the Wheat Kings brought in 16-year-old Ethan Kruger from the Sherwood Park Kings of the Alberta Midget Hockey League to serve as Myskiw’s backup. Kruger was Brandon’s fifth round pick in the 2016 WHL Bantam Draft.
Burzan and McCorrister extended personal point streaks to five and four games, respectively. Acquired from Moose Jaw in the Kale Clague trade at the deadline, Burzan has two goals and three assists in his streak while McCorrister has three goals and three helpers in his run.
While Saskatoon hasn’t been in the WHL playoffs since hosting the MasterCard Memorial Cup in 2013, that was the last year the Wheaties weren’t in the post-season.
Bridge City Bunch overage forward Braylon Shmyr drew an assist on Paterson’s power play tally, extending his consecutive game points streak to six games, during which he has four goals and four helpers. For the season, the Calgary product has 86 points. The last Blades players to put up that many points in season were Marek Viedensky (88) and Josh Nicholls (87) in the 2010-11 campaign.
Paterson scored a goal for a fourth consecutive contest. He also took the team lead in power play goals with 10 for the season.
Saskatoon was 1-for-5 on the power play and killed off all four Brandon man-power advantages.
Once again, defenceman Randen Schmidt plus left wingers Tyler Lees and Alec Zawatsky were healthy scratches for the Bridge City Bunch. In addition to Thompson being sidelined, the Wheat Kings are without rookie centre Jonny Hooker due to an upper body injury. Two other scratches were coaches decisions, defenceman Ty Ettinger and left winger Ben McCartney.
Chase Wouters of the Blue and Gold paced all players with five shots on goal with team-mates Paterson, Shmyr and Eric Florchuk adding four shots on goal each. Mattheos topped the Wheaties with three shots on goal.
In the faceoff circle, Brandon won 28 of 49 draws, led by Mattheos who captured possession on 12 of 17 faceoffs. Wouters won 12 of 18 trips to the dot to be the Blades’ top man in the circle.
