After a win over the Edmonton Oil Kings, Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray praised his team’s complete 60-minute effort. Against the Red Deer Rebels on home ice, they turned in another.
Dominik Petr scored twice, and Quinn Mantei, Caleb Hadland, and Matteo Michels also scored as the Wheat Kings took down Red Deer 5-1. Carson Bjarnason stopped 21 of 22 shots thrown his way in the win.
“It was back-to-back really good 60-minute games,” Murray said. “Obviously you’re going to have some spurts where they push you a little bit, but overall I thought it was a really good effort for the entire 60 minutes.”
The Wheat Kings got an early 4-on-3 power play, and while the unusual power play wasn’t long, the Wheat Kings didn’t need much time. Right off the faceoff, Mantei fed the puck to Jaxon Jacobson, who snapped it over to Petr for a lightning-quick passing play that ended with a perfect one-timer.
Petr went right back to work at even strength. Driving the net, he took a spinning pass from Nicholas Johnson, and tipped it home with just the right touch to make it 2-0.
Neither Petr nor the Wheat Kings were done, however. As the Wheat Kings broke in with numbers, Mantei joined the rush and took a feed from Petr, walking in and firing a low, hard shot home to complete the impressive first period scoring for Brandon.
Right out of the gate in the second period, the Wheat Kings looked for more. Hadland drove into the Red Deer zone and one-handed the puck to the front of the net, hoping one of his teammates would get it. As it turned out, they didn’t need to. Hadland’s pass rode a Rebel stick and dropped in behind Peyton Shore.
Shore was soon replaced by Chase Wutzke, but the Wheat Kings treated him no better. Hadland won a battle behind the Rebel net and fed it out front to Michels, who one-timed home his ninth of the season.
The Rebels spoiled the shutout on their fourth power play of the game. Early in the man advantage, the Rebels teed up Hunter Mayo for a one-timer, and their leading goal scorer made good on his 11th of the season.
Late in the game, things got out of hand. First, Kalan Lind ran Bjarnason and forced him out of the game. Then, Jake Missura of the Rebels attempted a knee-on-knee hit on Adam Belusko which partially connected and led to an abbreviated 5-on-3 with less than a minute to go. All the shenanigans made no difference on the scoresheet, and the Wheat Kings took the 5-1 win.
It’s a quick turnaround for the Wheat Kings as they host the Prince Albert Raiders tomorrow night. Puck drop on Teddy Bear Toss night is 7:00.
