September 20, the night many coaches of WHL teams, fans of the league, general managers and so many more have been waiting for. The curtain on the 2019-2020 regular season will rise with seven games across the league.
One of the games is the newly created “Manitoba Battle” as the Winnipeg ICE make their first trip to Brandon for game one of 68.
The Wheat Kings, who I figure will be the favourites in the game have shown signs of dominance in the preseason, but at times they’ve shown lackluster play.
As we inch closer to puck drop on Friday night at Westoba Place, I’ll take a look at how Brandon did over the course of their four preseason games.
Game #1 vs Winnipeg:
The short preseason really couldn’t have gotten off to a better start for Brandon. Ty Thorpe scored more goals than all of last year in one game, Connor Ungar and Ethan Kruger combined for a shutout and Brandon handily beat Winnipeg 5-0.
Nolan Ritchie who will be one of the team’s rookies also had two points (1G, 1A). Stay tuned later this week to hear from Nolan ahead of Friday.
The only thing that didn’t go perfectly for Brandon on this night was the arena wasn’t sold out. But, it’s the preseason and that’s not realistic. All in all, it was a dream start for the club from the Wheat City.
Game #2 @ Winnipeg (Portage La Prairie, Manitoba):
One night later, the two teams met at a neutral site in Portage at Stride Place, the home of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Terriers. Fun fact if you enjoy Jr. A hockey, the Terriers will host this year’s Centennial Cup from May 9-17.
With that out of the way, the Wheat Kings looked poised to complete a home-and-home preseason sweep. They had all the momentum from the night previous and several of their top players were still in the lineup. The game also featured our first look at Tyson Zimmer, Rylen Roersma and Nate Danielson, who were all picked in the top 16 at this past May’s WHL Bantam Draft.
But, as you know, one day can bring a drastically different result in the WHL and that’s exactly what happened.
Cole Muir and Logan Danis got the ICE out front 2-0 and they never looked back in a 5-1 win.
13 Brandon players were at least a -1 while two players were -2. So the club’s record was 1-1 after their first weekend of preseason hockey.
Game #3 @ Moose Jaw:
After a week of practicing and working out, the team hit the road for their first trip to Saskatchewan. They played the Moose Jaw Warriors’ on Friday, September 13 at Mosaic Place.
Just like seven days before, Brandon dominated the majority of the play and Ridly Greig was a menace. He had four points (2G) as Brandon went on to win 5-2.
Jake Chiasson also had a multi-point game (1G) and Cole Reinhardt had two assists. Ethan Kruger was also good making 23 saves on 25 attempts pushing Brandon to 2-1 on the tune-up season.
Game # 4 vs Moose Jaw:
If you haven’t noticed yet, there’s been a mini-trend in the first three games. Brandon won their first and second and that was the top of the bun and the bottom and the meat in the middle turned out being a loss.
With one last opportunity for players to show their stuff, Brandon was outplayed for the majority of the game, but Jiri Patera was fantastic. He ended up making 33 saves on 35 shots in his first game back with the team.
In the end, it came in a 2-1 loss, but as the game went on Brandon improved and that’s what you’d hope for. At the end of the day, winning or losing really doesn’t matter in the preseason, but the effort certainly does.
Dave Lowry, head coach of the Wheat Kings joined me recently to share his thoughts on how things went.
“Well, I saw a couple of games that we really liked. We did a lot of good things in the first game of the back-to-backs,” said Lowry. “The second nights didn’t yield the result but we have to factor in a lot of young guys played and it’s new to them. Going forward, our group will be better because of what happened during those two losses.”
“The biggest thing is we have to stay level. We can’t be too high and we can’t be too low. Especially when you’re playing the same team, when you play them on Friday you know they’re going to come out different,” said Lowry. “They’re going to adjust and we have to prepare for those adjustments. We need to expect those teams to come out harder on the back-to-back sets.”
As mentioned before, Brandon gets things going on Friday when they welcome the Winnipeg ICE to town. That’s the first of 68 games during the regular season. Last year, Brandon missed the playoffs narrowly after going 2-7-1 in their last 10 games.
With a new head coach and general manager in place, Brandon is ready to make a move back to the WHL playoffs.
“We have a hungry group and a group that’s looking for redemption,” said Lowry. “We have guys here that know they can win and they want to prepare so that happens.”
One of the players that did shine in the preseason was Nolan Ritchie, as he was mentioned previously in this article. He ended up with four points (1G) in three games. That was tied for a team lead with Ridly Greig and Cole Reinhardt.
Ritchie has been a player who has tore it up previously in Brandon. Being from the city, he played for the Brandon U18 Wheat Kings beginning in the 2017-18 season. In his last season with the team during the 2018-19 campaign, Ritchie put up 94 points (39G) in 47 regular-season games. He added another 21 points (9G) in the playoffs and the team won a league title. He also scored one goal in four games with the WHL team last year.
This year, he’ll be an everyday player and if he does anything close to what he did in the preseason, it’s going to be a special season for the Brandonite.
“We’ll keep things in perspective knowing he’s a young player. We don’t want to put too much pressure on our young guys. They need to understand that games get harder every single night as the season goes on,” said Lowry of Ritchie. “He’s a very intelligent player and he has a very good understanding of how to play the game.”
Another big headline in the preseason ended up being between the pipes. Jiri Patera played against Moose Jaw as previously noted and he made 33 saves. Patera will be Brandon’s number one goalie this season and the Vegas Golden Knight draft pick could be exactly what the team needs to push them back to the playoffs.
“He gave us a chance to win a hockey game that night, we weren’t very good early,” said Lowry. “He’s going to play a lot of hockey and he’s going to give us a chance to win.”
Lowry was also very high on Connor Ungar and Ethan Kruger.
“We’re not worried about our goaltending situation, they will battle and that’s what we want,” he added.
Friday’s game will also be very exciting before the puck even drops. The organization will unveil a brand new jumbotron at Westoba Place. When the puck does drop, Lowry expects to compete and do it now.
“We want to be a fast team. We want to transition pucks and go from defence to offence,” concluded Lowry. “Our goal is to be an exciting team to watch and a team that can win.”
There is no doubt that there’s a ton of optimism and excitement in Brandon right now as the team gets set to open up their 2019-20 campaign.
Will Brandon make it back to the playoffs? Keep it locked right here to the DubNetwork as I take you through each and every game.
