Before the game against the Prince Albert Raiders, head coach and GM Marty Murray predicted the Wheat Kings were in for playoff level intensity against them. They turned to their veterans to carry them through, though not without some contributions from the youngest players on the team as well.
Caleb Hadland scored twice and added an assist as the Wheat Kings beat the Raiders 5-3. Prabh Bhathal scored his first WHL goal, and Marcus Nguyen and Jaxon Jacobson also scored in the win, while Alex Garrett continued his steady play with 33 saves.
“The last ten minutes, a couple of penalty kills were pretty nerve wracking,” Murray said. “But it was a real gritty effort, I thought, on our guys’ behalf.”
Early in the first, the Wheat Kings got cause to celebrate. Adam Belusko won a battle just inside the Raiders’ line, and fed Bhathal in the slot. Bhathal fired it home with the confidence of an established sniper, collecting his first WHL goal.
The Raiders’ lethal power play tied the score at one. Lukas Dragicevic let a shot go through traffic that found its way through a double-screen, eventually being tipped in by Niall Crocker.
Late in the first, however, the Wheat Kings restored their lead. Jacobson spun a puck back out front from behind the net and Belusko had a whack at it before Hadland found a seam on Max Hildebrand and leaked a backhander through.
It didn’t take the Raiders long to tie the score. Brayden Dube made a strip behind the Wheat Kings’ net and fed it out front to a waiting Aiden Oiring, who buried it.
Again the Wheat Kings restored their lead. Luke Shipley caught Nguyen with a stretch pass and sent him in alone, and Nguyen showed off his snipers’ finish, finding the top corner to make it 3-2.
On their first power play of the game, the Wheat Kings extended their lead. Jacobson found the puck out of a pile at the side of the Raiders’ net and stuffed it home.
But late in the second, the Raiders bit into the lead. From the point, Justice Christensen found a lane through an entire shift’s worth of bodies in front of Garrett to cut the lead in half.
Despite two penalty kills in the third period, however, the Wheat Kings locked things down. With just 14 seconds to go, Hadland picked off an errant pass, took his time, and found the vacant Raiders’ net.
The win moves the Wheat Kings into fourth place in the WHL’s Eastern Conference and gives them their second straight road sweep. Next up: a home tilt with the Portland Winterhawks on Friday, January 10.
