By the time the first period was over, the Brandon Wheat Kings had both scored and surrendered all the goals they would in the game. As it turned out, they hadn’t amassed enough offense in that time.
Caleb Hadland scored their lone goal, and Carson Bjarnason was strong yet again with 31 saves, many on breakaways or odd man rushes. The Wheat Kings fell 3-1, however, losing their third game of the season against the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
“There wasn’t a lot of space out there,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “The puck bounces in this rink and it’s kind of brutal ice, but they have to play on it too. We have to do a better job with a little extra TLC on the puck. It comes back to the first period, we weren’t ready to go, where in the last 22 or 23 minutes we were right there.”
The Hurricanes forced a turnover behind the Wheat Kings’ net, and got the game-opening goal as a result. The puck came out front to Brayden Edwards, and the Hurricanes’ co-leading goal scorer snapped home his 29th.
On their first penalty kill of the game, the Wheat Kings flipped the script and tied the score. Hadland brought the puck up ice on a two-on-one, kept the shot for himself from the right circle, and cleanly beat Jackson Unger for his 22nd of the season.
The Wheat Kings’ luck went sour from there, however. First, Caden Price batted one in out of mid-air after the initial save by Bjarnason as the puck pinballed around. Then, on another Hurricanes’ power play, Logan Wormald bounced a puck off both a stick and skate in front, and somehow sent it straight to the top corner from an almost impossible angle.
As it turned out, Wormald’s bizarre goal would be the last goal of the game. That was in no small part thanks to Bjarnason, who stopped two breakaways and a two-on-one in the second period, giving the Wheat Kings the opportunity to push back in the third.
While the Wheat Kings did push back (including five shots during a double-minor power play), they couldn’t solve Unger. And time ran out on them with the score still 3-1.
Next up for the Wheat Kings: a matinee outing against the Calgary Hitmen to close out the road trip at 3:00 Central Time.
