It was another busy week for the Swift Current Broncos.
On October 10th, the Broncos announced the release of defenseman Sam Pouliot. Pouliot was acquired in September from Red Deer for a conditional 10th round pick in the 2020 bantam draft. He played five games for the Swift Current Broncos, earning six penalty minutes and a minus-3 rating before being released.
Two days later, the team made a trade that acquired Garrett Sambrook, a defenseman from the Brandon Wheat Kings in exchange for a conditional 9th round pick in the 2020 bantam draft. Sambrook is an 18-year-old who played 70 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings and earned a goal and nine assists in his time with his former team.
That same day, Swift Current released forward Colum McGauley. McGauley made an appearance at this year’s training camp and got noticed. Drafted in 2015 by the Spokane Chiefs, then traded to the Kelowna Rockets, McGauley made the move to Swift Current in an off-season trade. After playing in two games with the Broncos, Swift Current released him on October 12th.
The Broncos had a pair of games this past weekend. They hosted the powerful Spokane Chiefs on Friday, October 12th and then travelled to Brandon, Manitoba on October 13th to take on the Wheat Kings.
Swift Current was on the defensive most of the game against the Chiefs. Their power play would be the biggest strength of the Swift Current Broncos during their lone match-up with Spokane but it wouldn’t be enough to hold off their opponent. A mixture of lots of time in the penalty box for Swift Current team and a lack of offensive power led to only one goal by the home team. Isaac Poulter was solid in net with 44 saves on 48 shots while Noah King would break the shutout late in the game to finalize the score 4-1 for the visitors.
Saturday, October 13th saw a different Swift Current team when they travelled to Brandon to take on the Wheat Kings. It was Garrett Sambrook’s first time in the lineup and it just happened to be against his former team. With Joel Hofer in net, the Broncos started off defensively strong, but the Wheat Kings opened the scoring on a delayed penalty call. Alec Zawatsky tied the game in the second period, but it was short-lived as Brandon would take another lead with a power play goal. Andrew Fyten was the difference maker in the third period for Swift Current when he tied the game to force overtime. Overtime solved nothing and this game went into a shootout. With goals by Zawatsky and Max Patterson, the Swift Current Broncos unloaded the monkey off their backs with their first win of the season, 3-2.
The Broncos are on their western road swing right now as they head out to British Columbia. Tuesday, October 16th, Swift Current takes on the Vancouver Giants before heading to Victoria to play the Royals on Wednesday, October 17th and then on to Kamloops to take on the Blazers on Friday, October 19th.
