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WHL Brandon Wheat Kings

Blades Beat Wheat Kings 3-2 in Battle of Division Leaders

April 12, 2021 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Brandon Wheat Kings News Release


In a battle of the Western Hockey League East Division leaders, the Saskatoon Blades beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 3-2 on Sunday night on the back of 42-save performance by netminder Nolan Maier.

The Wheat Kings outshot the Blades 15 to 10 in the first period, controlling play and putting a great deal of pressure on the Blades' defence and goalie. But it was the captain Chase Wouters who got the game's first goal with just 1:04 left in the first, the puck redirecting off his skate and past Ethan Kruger while the Blades were on the power play.

Saskatoon added to their lead in the second period when Kyle Crnkovic scored on another powerplay, this time on a wrist shot from the point at 4:50.

The Wheat Kings broke their goalless drought at 10:16 in the second on a power play of their own. The puck was snapped tape-to-tape from Chad Nychuk to Jake Chiasson to Ridly Greig to Ben McCartney, who was parked in front of the net. Maier made the initial save but McCartney stuck with it and was able to jam it past to get the Wheat Kings on the board.

In the third, Brandon Lisowsky got a fortunate bounce off the skate of his teammate Blake Stevenson to put the game out of reach with a tap in at 16:44. It was the game's first even strength goal and the pace of play, along with Maier's outstanding performance, made the comeback feel improbable for Brandon.

Ridley Greig would score with Kruger pulled and an extra attacker on the ice, but he buried it with just 7 seconds left in the game making for a 3-2 final.

Maier stopped a whopping 42 of 44 shots in the game and was the clear difference maker, earning the game's first star. Kyle Crnkovic had a goal and an assist to earn the second star and Greig's goal and an assist earned him the third. Brandon netminder Ethan Kruger faced 22 shots in the loss.

"We only scored one on the power play, that's the difference in the hockey game," said Wheat Kings head coach Don MacGillivray after the game. "We needed to find a way to get pucks into the net and we didn't do that. I didn't like our start, I didn't think we played as good as we needed to play in the first period to put them on their heels but I thought we got going and I thought we played a really good, solid second period and got ourselves back in the game and gave ourselves a chance to win."

After enjoying an eight game win-streak prior to the Wheat Kings' 2-1 overtime loss on Friday to the Regina Pats, the Wheat Kings hit several posts against the Pats and then ran into a red hot Maier on Sunday. When asked if tough luck is something he addressed to his team, MacGillivray said he likes the effort he's seeing from his team despite back-to-back losses this weekend.

"I think you're a little more concerned if you're getting outshot 44 to 22. I think we played hard, we're getting a lot of really good effort from a lot of guys. We have to be a little bit better in the offensive zone in terms of where we're putting the puck and getting traffic, staying at the net."

"We need to get a little bit more grease to our game and stick around the net and find those ones that are tap ins at the crease."

Like MacGillivray, Wheat Kings captain Braden Schneider said he liked the effort the Wheat Kings played with and the way his team finished the game,

"We didn't start the way we wanted to and they capitalized on the chances they had. I thought in the second and third we were the better hockey team and we created as much as we could and we were taking it to them. I'm happy with the way we finished the game but I think if we'd started the game off better it would have fared better for us."

The Wheat Kings take a day off and will be back on the ice against the Moose Jaw Warriors at 5PM on Tuesday.

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