In junior hockey, momentum doesn’t just exist in games. It can exist within a season as well. And the Wheat Kings had a golden opportunity to build some on Saturday night in Regina.
Despite their rough start, statistically the roughest of the season, they still had a chance to complete a thrilling comeback, getting back within one goal with over six minutes to play in the third. If the Wheat Kings complete that comeback, we’re talking about that as their third win in four games (in the fourth of which they massively outshot their opponent). If they complete that comeback, we’re talking about them being back at .500 on the road and going into a home double-header weekend with momentum on their side. We’re looking back on that ugly start as a rough moment in an otherwise good game and a lesson learned with little cost.
But they didn’t complete that comeback.
And now there’s no burying that awful start in Regina, possibly the worst statistical period they’ve played in my time covering the team (there have been periods where they surrendered more goals and periods where they gave up more shots, but I can’t recall them being outshot by a 17-3 margin in any of them). Now it’s much harder to forget or shrug off the team’s 2-6-1 start, which is the worst opening to their season since 2005. And regardless of how that game in Regina turned out, it’s hard to look at an admittedly far too early picture of the standings and see a team that knows it can do much better on the outside of the playoff race looking in (albeit with far fewer games played than several teams ahead of them).
Then again, much of the above would’ve been true even if the Wheat Kings had won in Regina, it just would’ve carried a different flavor. And none of the bad erases the good either. Caleb Hadland and Joby Baumuller have three-game goal scoring streaks going and Hadland has points in five straight. He’s got company; both Luke Mistelbacher and Jaxon Jacobson are riding five-game point streaks as well. Gio Pantelas earned a B rating from NHL Central Scouting on their first list of the year and even that seems like selling him short. Filip Ruzicka has settled in wonderfully in his first few games in North America. There have been many reasons to think the team will turn it around.
Now, of course, they actually have to do so. The work continues.
- After the game against Regina, I had to ask Marty Murray about his team’s start that game and what they might do to overcome their run of poor starts. It’s a question that can’t be fun for him to answer. I don’t really enjoy asking it, frankly, but it needs to be asked after the team gave up the opening goal for the ninth game running. His answer was intriguing. He said he almost wondered if they’d been discussing it too much and maybe it was better not to let it have that power over them. Of course he also said that, however you approach from here on out, the starts have been very frustrating. It’s something the team will have to correct. It’s also something that’s a bit bizarre. While the team was almost certainly going to give up the first goal in Regina (you get outshot 17-3 and it’s a minor miracle if you don’t give up the first goal) there have been plenty of other games where they’ve had enough shots to break through. You’d think at some point in nine games they’d have gotten a crazy bounce or something. It’s not like this team lacks the ability to score.
- Speaking of ability to score, while Luke Mistelbacher’s goal scoring streak came to an end against the Regina Pats (he still nabbed an assist) Joby Baumuller and Caleb Hadland both extended goal scoring streaks of their own, while Carter Klippenstein and Chase Surkan scored for the second consecutive contest. It’s hard to say which of those is the most promising. Hadland is the team’s captain and leading returning goal scorer from last season, and is now over the point-per-game mark on the campaign. Baumuller, a player so often cited among those who could find another gear, is finding it. Klippenstein, the team’s second line centre and one of their most experienced forwards, getting some offense to go along with his nastiness is massive. And at this point, what more can we say about Chase Surkan? Well, we’d better start finding some things to say about him because he’s firing at just under a goal per game and he still has two significant milestones (the World Under-17s and the Christmas break) after which rookies tend to really find their stride. Again, the problem is not scoring goals. Those four players play on three different lines and two different power play units, so generating offense is very much not the team’s problem. You’ve no doubt heard that it’s easier to teach a skilled player to play defense than it is to teach a defensive-minded player to be a skilled player. If that holds true for the team as a whole, they’ve already figured out the hard part.
- So, naturally, the next part of the equation is keeping pucks out, and on that front you start between the pipes. The stats won’t show it, but Filip Ruzicka was the Wheat Kings’ saving grace in the first half of the first period in Regina before the sheer volume of chances dictated something was going to get by him. If he keeps that level of play up, and if Jayden Kraus can bounce back from a tough most recent outing (which one look at his previous body of work suggests very strongly he can do) then you have a solid goaltending tandem. With today’s reassignment of Hudson Perry, the Wheat Kings have their duo set between the pipes. While I found Hudson Perry very enjoyable to deal with and quite friendly, being down to two goaltenders will mean a little more simplicity for each guy and maybe a little more time for each of them to work in practice. In a position where the mental side of the game matters more than any other, the simplicity may be the perfect thing.
- One area where I didn’t see Ruzicka’s name but where I would not be the least bit surprised to see him before the end of the season is NHL Central Scouting’s list. When they released their preliminary list on Monday, there were three Wheat Kings on there. No one should even pretend to be surprised Gio Pantelas played his way onto that list. With ten points in nine games (after ten all of last season) and a consistent physical game, Pantelas could honestly be said to have been sold short on the rating, if not for the fact that this looks to be a generally strong NHL draft class (especially out west, as we’ve talked about before). Probably the biggest standout skill for him right now is his skating, which has resulted in successful breakouts and drawn penalties several times this season. Team CHL for the CHL-U.S. Top Prospects Game is supposed to be released later this week. Given his play and the fact that he represented Canada at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, it would be shocking if Pantelas wasn’t on that roster for Team CHL.
- The other two names on the preliminary list for the Wheat Kings might be considered surprises (they’re listed under W for Wildcard so not as predictable as some of the other players on that list), but the more I think about Cam Allard’s inclusion, the less surprising it is. After all, he’s a 6-foot-3 right-shooting defenseman who can skate and play with an edge and who has four points in his first eight games this season. Keeping that in mind, it would be strange if he wasn’t getting noticed by NHL scouts. Allard has had possibly the most noticeable game-to-game improvement of any rookie on the Wheat Kings (Surkan started off with two goals on opening night and has sort of just kept on rolling from there) and he looks visibly more confident with the puck on any given shift. He’s not afraid to take the body either, and at 6-foot-3 you don’t always have to work as hard as a smaller guy to develop a reputation as a physical player. There’s a lot of season left, but the former Estevan Bear is off to a fine start.
- The third name on the list for the Wheat Kings: Jimmy Egan. Egan has been the consistent centerpiece of the team’s fourth line all season, and has been a mainstay on the penalty kill. Where I notice him the most, however, is on the forecheck. He’s not running guys over but he’s very clever with his stick positioning and opponents seem to have a really tough time breaking out cleanly against him. In Regina, one of the first extended offensive zone shifts for the Wheat Kings came with Egan, Easton Odut, and Ryan Boyce out together. This was not an isolated incident; any line with Egan on it has done a good job of hemming opponents in the offensive zone once they get there. A lot of that line’s best chances have come from Egan’s hard work behind the net as well. While the points aren’t there yet, all signs point to him finding the back of the net sooner than later. And, like Allard and Pantelas, he comes in with a respectable frame at just over 6-foot-1.
- One other thing Marty and I spoke about after the Regina game: the run of stunning third period comebacks in the WHL and how the Wheat Kings almost added their name to the list. The previous night, Regina had nearly erased 5-1 and 6-2 deficits in the third period, eventually falling 6-5 to the Prince Albert Raiders. That wasn’t even the craziest third period comeback of that evening; the Lethbridge Hurricanes, down 6-1 at the hands of the Calgary Hitmen, roared all the way back to take the game 7-6 in overtime. Junior hockey has never been a safe place for leads, but this season in particular it feels more true than ever that teams entering the third period ahead by a goal or two need to put the pedal straight down.
- As of this writing, Ethan Young leads the Saskatchewan U18 AAA league in points by a defenseman with 12 in eight games. Here in Manitoba, Easten Turko’s 15 point in nine games lead all defenseman in the MU18HL. That seems like a good sign (or couple of signs). Marty has referred to them as very heady players and pointed out that they both bring more to the table than just their offensive production. Oh, and Carson Park got into his first SJHL game with the Nipawin Hawks and scored twice, taking a break from co-leading the Saskatchewan AAA ranks in scoring. That 2009 birth year is looking stronger and stronger by the day for the Wheat Kings.
- Meanwhile, in the CSSHL ranks, NAX’s U18 Prep Team (who I jokingly refer to as the NAX Wheat Kings) are off to a good start and some of the highly touted 2010s on the Wheat Kings’ list are leading the charge. Ahmad Fayad and Levi Ellingsen have nine and eight points respectively in six games, and while Cruz Jim has only played two games (he missed a bit of time due to his stint with Brandon a couple of weeks ago, a stint in which he did not look the least bit out of place) he does have a goal in those two games. Jim and Fayad will be part of Team Alberta at the WHL Cup this season as well.
I remember the mantra from the Wheat Kings when, almost two years ago exactly now, they dropped that horrendous 11-1 game to the Portland Winterhawks. “The sun rose again today and now we have to get to work” was a popular line among the oldest leaders on that team and their coaches alike. The sun has risen on a new week for the Wheat Kings and now they can put their work boots on again.
They’ll need them this weekend. They’re up against a Lethbridge Hurricanes squad that proved they can mount a comeback against almost insurmountable odds, and a Moose Jaw Warriors team that not only spoiled their opening weekend but currently leads the league in goals for (hands up if you saw that coming; I should see no hands).
So the work will, and must, continue.
