“Murphy’s Law” bites Blades in setback to Brandon

By Les Lazaruk

 

You could see it coming, especially if you were among the 6,242 fans at SaskTel Centre Friday night. Chance after chance after chance to score was denied or missed by the Saskatoon Blades until the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings took advantage of their opportunities and downed the Bridge City Bunch 4-1.

The Blades posted the first eight shots on goal in the first period and out-shot the Wheaties 15-7 in the opening 20 minutes. But, the frame was scoreless.

In the second stanza, Saskatoon put up 10 of the first 11 shots on net, only to be frustrated by 20-year-old Brandon goaltender Logan Thompson. Shortly after holding the Wheat Kings power play without a shot on net, Baron Thompson was able to re-direct a wonderful saucer pass from the right wing boards to the front of the net by Connor Gutenberg up and over Bridge City Bunch rookie goaltender Nolan Maier for the first goal of the game…and the Wheat Kings never looked back.

“(In) the first two periods, I was really happy with our guys,” said head coach Dean Brockman. “I thought we were working hard. I thought we had a lot of real good chances…maybe we didn’t have the secondary chances that we (would have) wanted. But, I thought the guys played pretty well.”

The problem was Logan Thompson and opportunistic Brandon scoring. The shots were 31-17 after two periods in favour of the Blades, but they trailed 3-0 as Cole Reinhardt…on a power play…and Linden McCorrister added to Baron Thompson’s opening tally. Stelio Mattheos added his WHL-leading 11th power play in the third period for the 13-6-1 Wheaties…winners of four straight. In the end, Saskatoon  out-shot Brandon 43-25, but couldn’t score.

“It is frustrating,” stated centre Cam Hebig, who broke Logan Thompson’s shutout bid before the mid-point of the third period on a power play. “They’re a good team, they’ve got a good goalie, but I think that if we bring it, we can play with anyone. We’ve got to move on from tonight, learn (from) what we did tonight and we’ll be ready next game.”

That comes Saturday in Moose Jaw as the 8-11-1 Bridge City Bunch are sure to face an angry bunch of Warriors who had a six-game winning streak snapped Wednesday in Saskatoon by a 5-4 score.

Pacman Points – The win was the 200th all-time by the Wheat Kings over the Blades in their regular-season, head-to-head history dating back to 1967 when Brandon joined the Western Canada Hockey League. Saskatoon has 210 wins with 29 games tied…back in the days when ties were allowed. The victory also snapped a three-game road losing streak for the Wheaties…their last away win prior to this came October 8 by a 5-3 score in Calgary.

Brandon was 2-for-7 on the power play…1-for-2 on two-man advantages. The Bridge City Bunch finished 1-for-5 on the power play.

The Blades’ 8-11-1 record through 20 games is exactly the same as last season.

Maier’s start was his first at home at SaskTel Centre and the second of his WHL career. It also ended a streak of 14 straight starts in goal for the Blue and Gold by 19-year-old Ryan Kubic. It marked the first time Kubic was in uniform as the backup goalie all season.

Otherwise, Saskatoon used the exact same lineup as in the Wednesday victory over Moose Jaw. That meant defenceman Seth Bafaro served the third of his four-game suspension, centre Logan Christensen remains sidelined by an upper body injury while forwards Tyler Lees and Dryden Michaud were healthy scratches.

Brandon still lists defencemen Daniel Bukac and James Shearer as week-to-week with lower body injuries. Their trio of healthy scratches were blue-liner Ty Ettinger plus forwards Jonny Hooker and Ben McCartney.

The Wheat Kings won 35 of 64 faceoffs. Sophomore Caiden Dailey led the way by capturing possession for his team on eight of 11 draws. Hebig led the way for the Bridge City Bunch, winning 11 of 19 trips to the dot.

The busiest individual shooter overall was Braylon Shmyr for the Blades with seven shots on goal. Defenceman Kale Clague topped Brandon with four shots on goal…an amount that was matched by four other Saskatoon players.