The end of a hockey season is often like the first afternoon in a new house: there’s a lot of unpacking to do.
We’re now two weeks removed from the final game of the 2025-26 season for the Brandon Wheat Kings and it feels like we haven’t yet made a dent in all the storylines that defined the season that was. And even attempting to do so is a Sisyphean task because even in the inaptly named offseason there are still more bits and pieces coming in as we try to get a framework for how the team will look next season.
For us media types, part of the unpacking is to sit down with each of the graduating 20-year-olds and look back on their careers in junior hockey. I wish all three of Nicholas Johnson, Grayson Burzynski, and Luke Mistelbacher nothing but the best, but their departure feels different from any other series of graduations I’ve covered in that their next steps in their hockey journey are already laid out for them. Burzynski and Johnson have known since before 2025 became 2026 where they would go in the NCAA, and while Mistelbacher had a college option, he’s found a landing spot in the AHL and already played his first game as a Belleville Senator.
The next bit of unpacking comes with what is usually the longest conversation of the season with head coach and GM Marty Murray. Both the season and the conversation we had about it are too long to distill down to a single emotion or anecdote, but just know that the frustration I’ve heard from Wheat Kings’ fans about the early playoff exit pales in comparison to the disappointment of the staff.
And all week long, the hockey world has conspired to bring us more things to unpack, and more things to paint a picture of the next season. Ever the optimist, I see some of the best of these. That optimism is a necessary tonic for the mind, however, after a season that ended far earlier than the team felt it should have.
- One note from my conversation with Marty was that there were no NCAA-related surprises in the exit meetings. By now, it’s fairly public knowledge which of the Wheat Kings’ 19-year-olds won’t be back next year due to college commitments (if you’re not reading Perry Bergson’s exemplary player-by-player roundup for the Brandon Sun you’re doing yourself a disservice), and Elite Prospects has most of the commitments listed already, but there were no out-0f-left field college departures for Brandon. Things can change in a summer, but right now the team is preparing to have, among others, 19-year-old right wingers Joby Baumuller and Brady Turko back in the fold for next season, which should give them an enviable one-two punch on the right side. Jaxon Jacobson’s pending return also gives them a true number one centreman.
- Speaking of Jacobson, one of the things Marty and I touched on in our year-end discussion was the way the team’s centre depth changed as the back half of last offseason turned into the back half of this season. At one time, the Wheat Kings had a projected centre depth of Roger McQueen, Jacobson, Carter Klippenstein and (depending on how the 20-year-old situation shook out) Matteo Michels. But by the start of the season, McQueen and Michels were gone and by the end of it, only Jacobson remained active. The young man’s response, as I wrote more than once this season, was phenomenal. Matched up against the other team’s most trusted checkers every night, Jacobson piled up 85 points (he would’ve comfortably broken 90 if not for missing five games in late November/early December, right as he was rolling along at his best offensive pace of the season) and won over 55 percent of his draws. The way-too-early lists for the 2027 NHL draft are starting to come out, and Jaxon is in the top ten on every list I’ve seen.
- It’s a good thing the Wheat Kings got some clarity on the NCAA front because wow have things been frantic there otherwise. This was somewhat to be expected as it is the week the transfer portal opens, but I don’t know if even veteran NCAA observers expected quite this degree of roster-shuffling chaos. Part of this has less to do with the influx of CHL players than with Mercyhurst abruptly shutting down their men’s hockey program but the fact is there were over 200 players in the transfer portal. By coincidence, my season-closing conversation with Marty fell on the day the transfer portal opened. One thing he and I talked about was the idea that while the NCAA option is great for the players to have, it’s important for them to be honest with themselves about how ready they are for that circuit. Some players who moved to the NCAA last season had smooth transitions and are either staying put or, in a handful of cases, using it as an immediate springboard to the pros. Other players struggled mightily. The batch of players going in this summer has the advantage of learning from their colleagues’ experiences, many of whom they know well enough to ask them directly about it. Not every 18 or 19-year-old is ready to play against 23 or 24-year-olds and that’s ok; college will still be there for these kids when they are ready.
- The Wheat Kings’ season is over, but hockey games that Wheat Kings’ fans have a vested interest in are still to come. First of all, both Jaxon Jacobson and Gio Pantelas were invited to Hockey Canada’s camp for the World Under 18s, which begin next week in Slovakia. I may be biased (I am definitely biased) but both should be locks for that team. Gio has represented Canada internationally numerous times already and already taken part in all the top prospects showcases, and Jaxon led all skaters out of that initial camp list in scoring this past season. This last tournament of the season could be a huge boost to the confidence of both guys, and to their draft stock as well (more immediately to Pantelas as Jacobson is up for next year’s draft).
- Second of all, the Regina Pat Canadians, including Wheat Kings prospects Ethan Young and Logan Dosenberger, start the TELUS Cup on Monday in Peterborough, Ontario and are looking for their second straight national championship. Young has had a remarkable, literally historic season and put a cherry on top of it with his first WHL point in his first WHL game in Lethbridge before getting into more games with the team through their United States road trip. At this point, it seems pretty safe to say his U18 AAA career is almost over, and what better way to end it than with back-to-back national championships?
- Despite it being the offseason, the back half of this week was full of positive news for the Wheat Kings, first and foremost their showing on NHL Central Scouting’s latest ranking. Four players appearing on the list is great, but what’s more impressive for Pantelas, Cam Allard, Baumuller, and Filip Ruzicka is that all four of them rose multiple spots from the mid-term rankings. On paper, Ruzicka had the shortest leap at nine spots, but given that its on a much shorter list, the fact that he’s climbed as high as fourth among North American goaltenders is a huge jump up from 13th at the mid-term. Baumuller and Pantelas moved up 13 and 12 spots respectively (like Ruzicka, Gio was already high enough up the list that 12 spots feels like a big leap) but the most impressive surge forward from midterms went Allard’s way. From 190th at the midterm, Cam jumped 60 spots up to 130th. He showed so well offensively in the second half and that had to be part of it, but his size and poise had him on NHL radars even before the points started rolling in. One other note from Central Scouting: Samu Alalauri, the Finnish defenseman the Wheat Kings picked in last year’s Import Draft, came in at 17th among European skaters in the last list of the season. While he hasn’t officially signed with the Wheat Kings, there’s clearly some optimism in Brandon that they can bring him over; whenever Perry or I ask Marty about the crop of 2008-born players they’re building, Alalauri’s name usually comes up. If he does come to Brandon, he adds yet another big, mobile, right-handed defenseman to the mix. If Allard and Pantelas are drafted this summer (if seems more and more like when), and Alalauri comes over, could the Wheat Kings ice a defensive group next season where the entire right side is drafted to the NHL? On paper, that’s a possibility.
- One other piece of prospect-related good news came down today as the Wheat Kings officially signed Colin Grubb. Grubb, a Minot native whose family is familiar with Marty from his time there and who actually came north to watch Wheat Kings’ games when Colin was younger, is a potentially huge get for next season and beyond. He’s a Shattuck St. Mary’s 18U product, and just as a reminder, 18U works differently than Canadian U18; the oldest player Grubb played against at the 18U level this season would’ve been born in 2007, not 2008 as would’ve been the case in Canada. Grubb had already lit up the 16U ranks as one of the youngest players in the circuit in 2024-25, and brings what Marty described to me as high-character, high-IQ hockey with solid 200-foot responsibility. Like Jimmy Egan before him, don’t be surprised if Grubb gets a look from Team USA at their Hlinka Gretzky Cup camp this summer. And given that he’s already committed to UND for 2028-29, don’t be shocked if there are some NHL scouts who come to Brandon interested in his development this season.
- On that note, just how many representatives at the WHL Top Prospects Game, which they are hosting, will the Wheat Kings have next season? Jacobson seems a slam dunk, and Chase Surkan and Prabh Bhathal have similarly high chances. One of the incoming 17-year-old rookies (it promises to be quite a class; in addition to Young and Grubb, Easten Turko, Carson Park, and Carson Ralph all spent time with the Wheat Kings this season) could play their way into it, but the guy I think scouts are going to be very interested in is Nigel Boehm. Already boasting strong size and a mile-wide mean streak, Boehm skates well and plays responsibly, and has devoted himself to exactly the kind of style that teams win with. His type of defenseman (who puts up points even though points are far from the main draw of his game) is exactly the type teams pay through the nose to acquire when the trade deadline and free agency hit. Don’t be surprised if he wins some fans among NHL scouts.
I greatly prefer to write these when there are on-ice goings on to tell you of, and I do wish the Wheat Kings were still going. But there’s no way to go back, only forward, and so we push forward with this blog as well. Onto the misnomer that is the offseason.
