A series that was far closer than the final score in games would indicate came to a close on a sad note for the Brandon Wheat Kings in Lethbridge.
Quinn Mantei and Joby Baumuller scored, and Ethan Eskit was incredible with 48 saves. But the Hurricanes moved on to round two with a 5-2 win.
“We hung around there, obviously the difference was the 5-on-3 at the start of the third,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “We take a penalty and fall on the puck off the faceoff, they’ve got pretty good players to give a minute and a half on 5-on-3. We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit.”
Brayden Yager was a prominent figure in the early first period for the Hurricanes. He was awarded a penalty shot just 1:10 in, only to be stonewalled by Eskit with the blocker. But on a Hurricanes’ power play, Yager got his own back, snapping one home from the left circle for the early lead.
It wasn’t long before the Wheat Kings responded, however. Nolan Flamand won a battle in the far corner and fed the point for Mantei, who waited for the perfect moment to fire the puck through traffic and in.
A scary moment led to the Wheat Kings’ second goal of the game. With Shane Smith off for a five-minute major for a head check on Caleb Hadland, the Wheat Kings broke through. Baumuller won a battle in front of the Hurricanes’ net and sent it back to Jordan Gavin, who let the shot fly. Baumuller got the tip on it for his first playoff goal.
Early in the second, the Hurricanes pressed hard for the tying goal and found it. Jordan Gustafson won a race to the net and tapped home a feed from Kooper Gizowski to knot the game at two.
Late in the second period, the Hurricanes would be given a lengthy five-on-three opportunity. The Wheat Kings would kill off the remainder of the second period, but in the third Noah Chadwick would snap home the go-ahead goal.
Not long after, the Hurricanes would find the net again. With a Wheat Kings’ defenseman contending with a broken stick, Logan McCutcheon took advantage, picking the top corner to make it 4-2.
With 3:00 to go, the Wheat Kings pulled Eskit for the extra man. But a spinning long-range shot by Brayden Edwards went straight to the empty net to salt the game away.
The Wheat Kings thus end their season, and will go into the offseason. Flamand, Luke Shipley, and Marcus Nguyen were named the three stars of the game in their final games of their junior careers.
