All summer long, the Brandon Wheat Kings had watched as their counterparts around the Western Hockey League suffered losses to the NCAA. High end scorers, top-pair defensemen, and starting goaltenders all chose to end their WHL careers early.
Some teams were only nicked, others absolutely decimated. But aside from the early-offseason departure of Quinn Mantei, the Wheat Kings appeared to have come out of the first chaotic offseason of NCAA eligibility relatively unscathed.
Then, as the calendar turned to August, with training camp only weeks away, the other shoe dropped, and it dropped hard.
Star forward Roger McQueen, the team’s number one centre and a top-ten NHL pick, decided to leave the Wheat Kings early in favor of Providence College. It’s the kind of loss that would hurt any team, but for a Wheat Kings team that’s said all along they’re on a mission for a deep playoff run this year, for a team that had spent draft picks and future assets already to build up around McQueen, it was a tough pill to swallow.
“It’s difficult, no question about it,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “I lived that world for 12 years stateside, I think there was always communication with the school and, in my case, the USHL team about the player going in. That seems to have taken a back seat here in these situations. You lose a guy, but to lose a guy of Roger’s status on August 1, it makes it that much more difficult. He’s a hard guy to replace in his role and the timing is very difficult.”
Silver linings in this situation are few. McQueen was poised to be a key piece for the Wheat Kings, a fixture in a balanced attack that looked to be among the WHL’s deadliest. But the team did without McQueen for 51 regular season and two and a half playoff games in 2024-25. And they’re determined to push forward without him now if need be.
“The one thing I want to be completely clear on is we’re still really excited about this group,” Murray said. “We think we have a really good mix of high end players that can compete at the highest level in our league. We still have complete trust in the group we have. Roger was a big piece of what we have up front, but we played 50-plus games without him last year and did just fine. It is what it is, this is a new landscape we’re living in.”
In other words, the roster may have changed, but the expectations around this group haven’t. The Wheat Kings forward group is still deep, talented, and experienced, the defense corps still brings plenty of size, and newly acquired goaltender Jayden Kraus still has the pedigree of a number one goaltender. This is not something the team will be using as an excuse.
“We fully anticipate challenging for our division, our conference, and hopefully a berth in the Memorial Cup,” Murray said. “You’ve got to be in tune with what your team looks like not only this year but in future years too, so there was a lot to navigate whether we had Roger McQueen or not, but we intend to be a team that competes for a division and conference title, and hopefully that Memorial Cup spot.”
When asked who he expects to see step up, Murray’s attention turned to his veterans, and he still has plenty of them to turn to. There will also be room now for some of the younger forwards to shoulder more of the load, something quite a few of them did ahead of schedule in the injury-ravaged 2024-25 season.
“I think we have some guys that aren’t primarily centremen but they come to mind right away, guys like Caleb Hadland, Jordan Gavin, Luke Mistelbacher, those are guys we’re going to count on heavily,” said Murray. “Jaxon Jacobson will most likely get moved up the lineup and Carter Klippenstein has been a centre his entire life so he’ll get moved to that position as well. You look at guys like Brady Turko, Joby Baumuller, Jimmy Egan is a guy that can come in as a rookie and we hope can be an impactful player right away.”
Gavin and Mistelbacher have, between the two of them, enough offensive prowess to replace almost anybody. Gavin was the second overall pick the same year the Wheat Kings selected McQueen fourth overall, and Mistelbacher is the only returning 40-goal scorer in the Eastern Conference.
“We envisioned him (Mistelbacher) and McQueen playing together on our first line, but you don’t score 40 goals and almost 100 points by accident in this league,” Murray said. “As a 20-year-old, we need Luke to lead our team offensively and make those around him better.”
“Gavin has the ability to be a top-15 scorer in the league,” Murray added. “The way he sees the ice, his hockey IQ is top level in the WHL. Talking to him this summer, he’s put in a lot of hard work this summer and feels quicker on the ice. He has the ability to be a top-ten or 15 scorer in the league and hopefully he can come in and meet those expectations.”
Murray added the team’s defense is “steady across the board” and brings a good mix of size and skill. He also said he expects to see some big strides from Gio Pantelas, who just made Team Canada for the Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
