Canadian Thanksgiving may have been Monday, but two East Division teams found plenty to be thankful for later in the week.
Tuesday, the Regina Pats were plenty grateful to welcome back Adam Brooks and the next day it was Prince Albert who received good news from the NHL when defenceman Brendan Guhle returned to them from the Buffalo Sabres.
Brooks was re-assigned to the Pats from the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 20-year-old was the WHL’s leading scorer from a year ago when he tallied 38 goals and 120 points.
The 20-year-old Winnipeg product scored twice in his first game of the season Wednesday and bolsters a Pats lineup that is already brimming with talent.
Here’s a look at the week that was in the WHL’s East Division:
Broncos offence paces them to division lead
The Swift Current Broncos have earned at least a point in five straight games which has allowed them to surge to the top of the East Division standings.
The Broncos (6-2-0-1) lost 4-3 in a shootout to Brandon to open the week, but posted 4-3 wins over Prince Albert and Kootenay at home. The Broncos have played four one-goal games thus far and are 3-0-0-1 in those close contests.
Another reason for the Broncos’ fast start has been their offensive production.
Tyler Steenbergen has five goals and 10 points to open the season and Glenn Gawdin has five goals in seven games.
Lane Pederson has nine points in seven games to open the season and the 19-year-old was rewarded by signing a three-year entry level contract with the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes after attending their camp as an undrafted free agent.
Slick Finnish rookie Aleksi Heponiemi had three assists against Prince Albert and also has nine points to date.
Pats remain unbeaten in regulation time
Brooks’ two-goal return wasn’t enough to earn the Pats (4-0-3-0) two points Wednesday night as they dropped a 5-4 overtime decision to Portland.
Sam Steel is near the top of the WHL scoring table with 12 points in five games. That’s not a shock, but it is surprising to see his 17-year-old teammate Jake Leschyshyn right behind him. After a disappointing rookie season that saw Leschyshyn collect 16 points in 66 games, the former sixth-overall bantam pick has four goals and seven assists in seven games for the Pats.
Both overtime losses were wild affairs. Against Portland, the teams split six third-period goals and the Pats ended up out-shooting the Hawks 52-51.
Against the Ice, Regina scored three straight goals to force overtime, but came out on the losing end despite out-shooting the Ice 47-40.
The Pats have played six of their first seven games at home, but will travel to Cranbrook and Lethbridge before ending the week by hosting the Hurricanes.
In addition to getting Brooks back, the Pats will also get Austin Wagner back from a two-game suspension for the weekend. He has only played two games this season.
Consistency eludes Warriors
The Moose Jaw Warriors (4-1-2-0) managed to put together a consistent effort over three periods for the first time this season on Saturday. The result was a 6-2 win over the Kootenay Ice to cap a stretch of four games in five days. The night previous the Warriors raced out to a 2-0 lead before the Portland Winterhawks scored five unanswered goals.
The loss to the Winterhawks came on the heels of massive third period collapse in Medicine Hat on Wednesday. The Warriors took a 4-0 lead into the third period, but allowed three goals in 43 seconds to the Tigers who rallied for a 5-4 overtime win.
The Warriors’ win over the Ice came without 20-year-old defencemen Matt Sozanski and Josh Thrower, who were injured and suspended, respectively. The Warriors will look to be more consistent when they hit the road for a trio of games in Alberta this week.
Banged-up Blades beating the odds
The Saskatoon Blades (4-2-1-0) continued their strong start to the season by picking up five of a possible six points during a three-game homestand.
The Blades saw their three-game winning streak snapped Sunday with a 3-2 overtime loss to Edmonton.
Goalie Logan Flodell was the first star in a pair of Blades wins. He made 31 saves in a 2-0 win over Prince Albert and stopped 34 shots in a 3-1 win over Portland that saw the Blades out-shot 35-22 on the night.
Defenceman Libor Hajek is on a four-game point streak and has assisted on six of the Blades’ last 10 goals.
Saskatoon’s winning start comes despite being without veteran forwards Ryan Graham and Cameron Hebig to start the season. The Blades have also been without right winger Cameron Hausinger for the past two games.
The Blades also moved to bolster their lineup Thursday by adding 18-year-old left winger Caleb Fantillo from Medicine Hat for a sixth-round pick in 2019.
The Blades will be in Kelowna Friday as they open their five-game tour of the B.C. Division.
Slow start for the champs
It has been a rough start to the season for the reigning WHL champions.
The Wheat Kings (2-3-1-0) split a pair of shootout decisions in addition to losing 5-2 in Regina.
Tuesday they gave up five power-play goals to Portland and needed a goal from captain Nolan Patrick with four seconds left to force overtime. The Winterhawks won 7-6 as they won the shootout that followed the shootout that occurred over 60 minutes.
Brandon also lost 5-2 to the Pats earlier in the week.
Wheat Kings overage goalie Jordan Papirny has seen his goals-against average jump to 3.73 in the opening weeks of the season compared to the 2.61 GAA he posted a year ago.
The Wheat Kings are still waiting to get defenceman Kale Clague back in the lineup after her returned from Los Angeles Kings training camp with a lower-body injury and has yet to play this season.
Raiders making moves
While Guhle’s return is significant for the struggling Raiders (2-5), the news Thursday was about the veterans who wouldn’t be with them for the rest of the season.
The Raiders dealt 19-year-old goalie Rylan Parenteau to Tri-City for 18-year-old goalie Nicholas Sanders and a third round draft pick. By trading Parenteau, the Raiders open the door for 17-year-old Ian Scott to take over as the full-time starter. Scott was the ninth overall pick in the 2014 bantam draft and was expected to be the goalie of the future. Parenteau was an Eastern Conference second-team all-star a year ago.
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins signed 20-year-old right winger Reid Gardiner to an American Hockey League contract for the 2016-17 season. That move caps Gardiner’s four-year career with the Raiders after playing 262 games with the team. Gardiner had 43 goals and 92 points last season.
The Raiders began last week with a 5-3 home loss to Portland before losing 2-0 in Sasaktoon and 4-3 in Swift Current. They play a home-and-home with Brandon before hitting the road for midweek to start a three-game Alberta road trip in Edmonton.
