The Brandon Wheat Kings have played 17 games this season, seven of which came on their trip south of the border and into British Columbia.
The team was then back on home ice over the weekend for a pair of games. On Friday, it was a night of firsts. It was the first home game for the team in November and it was also the first day of the month.
Ethan Kruger also notched his first Western Hockey League shutout as he shut down the Swift Current Broncos.
“It felt good out there to get my first shutout of the year. Swift Current’s goalie played lights out as well, but we were able to get some goals and the win,” said Kruger after the win courtesy of wheatkings.com. “We haven’t been great at home and the message going into the game was we needed to win.”
That win was Brandon’s second in-a-row, both being against Swift Current. Thanks to Oliver Okuliar on Saturday night, any momentum the Wheat Kings built in the past two games came to a halt. From Slovakia, Okuliar had three goals to push Lethbridge to a 5-2 win.
One fun fact now that we’re talking about Oliver. Last year he had just 14 goals in 66 games with the Sherbrook Phoenix. This season alone already in just 18 games, Okuliar has 15 goals.
Brandon will play three games this week. The first of three comes on Tuesday evening when they welcome the Red Deer Rebels to Westoba Place.
Red Deer is 5-8-0-2 this season and they trail Brandon by two points. The Wheat Kings, who have 14 points trail Moose Jaw by a single point for the final wildcard spot.
The game gives Brandon a fantastic chance to get back to work on home ice, a venue where they have struggled so far. The Wheat Kings are just 2-5 at home for four points. That is tied for the fewest in the Eastern Division with the Regina Pats.
Offensive troubles:
The fact, in the end, is the Brandon Wheat Kings haven’t scored a ton of goals this season. Of teams with winning records in the Eastern Conference, Brandon has scored the fewest (49). In comparison, the Lethbridge Hurricanes lead the East with 67 goals.
Luka Burzan leads Brandon with 15 points and that’s 37th in the league. Aliaksei Protas leads the league with 26 points. So no, there isn’t a huge difference between the top scorer in the league and 37th, but Protas’ teammates in Prince Albert have also been helping him with secondary scoring. Four other Raiders have at least 14 points.
Behind Burzan in Brandon, no other Wheat King has 14 as Ben McCartney is second in team scoring with 13 points. Cole Reinhardt, Lynden McCallum, and Ridly Greig all have 10.
In their 10 losses this season, Brandon has scored just 14 goals. That’s an average of just 1.4 per game.
Stingy defence:
When it comes to goals against, Brandon isn’t shooting themselves in the foot at all. They have only allowed 50 goals this season so that’s an average of 2.94 per game. Since Jiri Patera was sidelined with an injury, Kruger has stepped in and he’s done a fine job. The team hasn’t scored much so I don’t really look at his 4-8 record as a downfall. Sure, some people may but I don’t.
He has a pretty solid 2.86 G.A.A and a .911 save percentage. Kruger is 12th in the league of goalies who have played more than 10 games with the 2.86 G.A.A. He’s also 12th with his .911 save percentage.
After the Red Deer Rebels and their 39 goals come into town, Brandon will be heavily tested this weekend. They’re in Prince Albert and Saskatoon. Prince Albert has scored 57 goals while Saskatoon has scored 56.
That means the club’s key to success has to start from the net out, as it has for the majority of the season.
For now, that’s going to wrap things up for today, but stay tuned later this week when we chat with a Wheat King in preparation for this weekend’s road trip to Saskatchewan.
