In their final regular season game on home ice, and on their awards night, the Wheat Kings didn’t let a tough start spoil their party.
Though they were down 3-1 after the first period, the Wheat Kings fought back and took a 5-3 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors, who they heavily outshot. Jayden Wiens, Rhett Ravndahl, Rylen Roersma, Luke Shipley, and Brett Hyland scored the goals.
A turnover to the wrong pair of guys bit the Wheat Kings early as an attempted breakout ended up on the stick of Brayden Yager. Yager fed Firkus as he leapt up to join him, and Firkus made no mistake for the 1-0 lead.
Firkus was at it again on the power play later in the first. Though the Wheat Kings killed off the first 1:57, Firkus took a cross seam feed from Yager and snapped home his 58th of the season.
As he’d done so often in recent games, Wiens gave the Wheat Kings the shot in the arm they needed. He picked up a rebound off an Andrei Maliavin point shot and stuffed home his 25th of the season and seventh in his last seven games.
But the duo of Yager and Firkus, off another turnover, gave the Warriors the lead back. This time it was Firkus playing set-up man and Yager, with the snap shot from the slot, providing the finish.
The simplest of plays, a point shot with traffic, got the Wheat Kings back within one again. From the line, Ravndahl fired a puck toward a screened Dimitri Fortin, and it rode the stick of a back-checking Warrior to make it a 3-2 game.
Less than a minute into the third, Roersma squared the score. Rushing up ice from his own zone, Roersma fired off a drag shot that cleanly beat Fortin for his 20th of the season.
A good pinch from Jacskon DeSouza led to a great rush by Joby Baumuller and as he drove around the net and fed it to the slot, Shipley, fresh off the bench, walked into a shot to give the Wheat Kings their first lead of the night.
On their first power play of the game, the Wheat Kings stretched their lead to two. Nick Johnson worked a give-and-go with Hyland, who walked into a shot in the slot for his 32nd of the year and a 5-3 lead.
Moose Jaw pulled their goaltender but never really threatened, and the Wheat Kings took the win. Their regular season closer is tomorrow night in Regina against the Regina Pats at 8:00 Central Time.
(Article courtesy of the Brandon Wheat Kings)
