At the very start of the Wheat Kings’ season, when the team had lost five games in a row, I found myself cautioning some fans that the start was just a handful of games and they ought not read too much into it. It would therefore be slightly hypocritical of me to glean too much from the last four games the Wheat Kings have played.
And yet…
I am, as longtime blog readers will know, an incorrigible optimist. I tend to show up to the rink in a good mood and I’m just a tiny bit of a homer, and that bleeds into my outlook on the Wheat Kings. It would be odd of me to stop being optimistic now.
The last four games for the Wheat Kings have been very different from the track meets we got used to seeing them play in the early season. In some ways, the team has had no choice but to adopt a different style as injury and illness alike have taken their toll. But in four games, all against good teams and division rivals, the Wheat Kings have demonstrated they’re quite capable of playing and winning tighter checking contests.
Nowhere was that more evident than in the two wins over Saskatoon, though even the loss on home ice to Prince Albert had its share of encouraging moments, especially since the Wheat Kings were down Jaxon Jacobson and Luke Mistelbacher (their two leading scorers) for that game and down to ten forwards overall. Last night, the team weathered a storm in the second period and, thanks to Filip Ruzicka, held their lead. When the third period began, they flipped a switch and outworked the Blades, outshooting them 14-5 and putting up two more goals for good measure.
The tests are not done, and in some ways the coming game against Regina represents a mental test in and of itself. The Pats are reeling after an 0-and-6 U.S. road trip and are playing their first game on home ice since November 15. If you looked at their recent results you might be tempted to take them lightly, but the season series against the Pats so far should’ve taught the Wheat Kings better than to do that.
The effort level has been consistently good for the Wheat Kings for the last four games and if they keep that effort level up then there’s no one they can’t beat. Then again, if keeping a consistent effort level for 68 games was easy, everyone would be doing it.
- Different players have stepped up offensively in the absence of Jaxon Jacobson (we’ll sing a few of their praises in a moment) but nobody has had more of a coming out party these past three games than Filip Ruzicka. In his past three outings he’s made 98 saves on 103 shots, and while that’s already an eye-popping statistic, that doesn’t do justice to the kinds of saves he had to make especially in the second period of last night’s win over the Blades. Ruzicka was en fuego last night, making diving cross-crease circus saves almost look like a matter of routine. At least one of those is going to end up on the plays of the week, mark my words. He even cleared the puck himself on a couple of occasions, making sure it got down the ice and out of the zone. He really was doing a bit of everything. His performance reminded me a lot of Carson Bjarnason’s game against Kamloops last season, in which he made several save-of-the-year candidates including one on a penalty shot, and the Wheat Kings paid him back with a six-goal outburst. For a 6-foot-7 goaltender, I’ve remarked more than once on how quick Ruzicka appears in the net. NHL teams have to be taking notice. A 6-foot-7 goalie is enticing enough, but when he moves like a cat he becomes very hard to ignore on draft day.
- In case you get thinking, however, that the Wheat Kings only won that game because of Ruzicka, it’s fair to point out the fashion in which they rewarded their goaltender for his second period effort. In the third, despite being up a goal, the team didn’t give the Blades hardly a sniff. In fact, it was Blades’ netminder Ethan McCallum’s turn to be far busier (and to his credit, he made some dandy saves of his own to keep his team in it). They outshot the Blades 14-5 as we noted above, and put up two more goals, both of them coming from veteran players. The second period wasn’t their best, to be sure (back-to-back-to-back penalty kills didn’t help) but they did score a goal thanks to a bullet of a shot from Joby Baumuller, and when they had a chance to reset, rather than go into a shell and let the Blades chase the equalizer, they did what teams protecting a lead ought to do: keep the pedal down and protect the lead by building upon it rather than sitting on it.
- Because they’ve been down to ten or 11 forwards for the last three games, the Wheat Kings have run with a seven-defenseman rotation that entire time. The result? Every defenseman seems to be playing some of their best hockey of the season. I could roll through the blueline one player at a time (and at some point this season I’ll likely have to) but everyone on the back end at the moment seems to be settling in. And even though playing with seven defensemen means guys get different partners on every shift, chemistry doesn’t seem to have been an issue. Players are blocking shots, finishing checks, defending their goaltender and each other, and picking the right moments to jump up into the rush. Brandon got four points from their blue line last night, one on every goal, and (perhaps a bit quietly) they’ve moved into the top-five teams in the league in getting points from the back end. Medicine Hat leads that pack by a country mile (you can thank Jonas Woo and Bryce Pickford for that) but the Wheat Kings are closing in on the second place Moose Jaw Warriors (who, it should be noted, have played two more games than Brandon).
- While I said I wasn’t going to run through every single member of the Wheat Kings’ blueline, for the second blog in a row I’m compelled to point out the good, steady work and consistent progress of Nigel Boehm. His assist on Joby Baumuller’s goal last night gives him seven on the season, one more than last year with 40 fewer games played, and it’s great that the points are coming, but as Marty Murray will tell you, that’s secondary with Nigel. He’s been physical (he threw a great hit on Oli Chenier against Prince Albert last Friday night), he had some gutsy shot blocks against Saskatoon on both the penalty kill and at 5-on-5, and he’s skating well with the puck while not overextending himself. Nigel told me he embraced the physical, shutdown defenseman role as young as 15 years old and it’s showed in his development in that role. It’s a role that’s getting harder and harder to find people willing to fill, yet one NHL teams are constantly on the lookout for. Nigel isn’t up for the NHL draft until next season, but if he keeps the consistent, steady play up, and if the offense keeps coming at the pace it has been (seven points in his last 12 games) people are going to start noticing him. It’s a bit of a paradox for a guy whose stated role is often defined as being at its best when he’s not being noticed, but when it’s been going as well as it has as long as it has, even us slower media types pick up on that sort of thing eventually.
- Another statistically excellent string of games for the penalty kill. I don’t want to overdo it be waxing poetic (Ruzicka did bail them out a couple of times) but the fact is the team’s penalty kill is above 70 percent, out of the league’s basement, and on a run where they’ve not allowed a power play goal in three games. A modest run, to be sure, but their best of the season. Just one way in which things are coming together.
- So many times when I’ve talked to Marty Murray about Joby Baumuller it’s been about him finding consistency; he can shoot, he can fly, he can hit, but can he put it all together on a consistent basis? This year, the answer has been resoundingly yes. Baumuller has stiff competition for most improved Wheat King; we’ve talked already about Nigel Boehm, Gio Pantelas has grown by a leap and a bound, and Jaxon Jacobson was third in the country in scoring when he suffered his injury in Prince Albert, but he certainly belongs in the conversation. If there’s been one area he’s been more noticeable just lately, it’s been off the rush coming in from the right wing. That was where he unleashed that ripper of a shot last night, but it’s also been featured prominently in several chances he’s created, some of which have led to goals for other guys. Something I’ve noticed: most teams don’t dare give Luke Mistelbacher a crack at their lower defense pairs because, well, he’s on pace for 50 goals and you’d be foolish to let him have a favorable matchup. That means, many a night, Baumuller is getting opposing teams’ second or even third pairing. When he takes off on the rush, he’s been eating those defensemen alive. Another thing that’s been impossible to miss: he drives the net now with the confidence of a player who knows he’s faster and stronger than 95 percent of his opponents. The results speak for themselves on that one. I grumbled this summer that Baumuller shouldn’t have slipped through the draft. If some team had used a seventh round pick on him, for which he could’ve been had, they’d be absolutely thrilled right about now.
- One final note, this one only Wheat King adjacent: I’ve worked with a lot of good guys during my time in Brandon and one of the best kids to work with has been Rhett Ravndahl. It therefore gives me great pleasure to see that not only did he stick in Kamloops as a 20-year-old, he’s been playing some of the best hockey of his career. He’s got four goals and six points in just 14 games (the four goals nearly matches his career total) and even more impressively is plus-13 on the season. Chatting with the good folks in Kamloops, it’s no surprise there are rave reviews of his character as well. I was a bit bummed for him that injury kept him out of the lineup in Brandon, but he’s an easy guy to root for and I’m wishing nothing but the best for him for the rest of the season. He’s making the most of his last season of junior hockey, which is tremendous to see.
The vibes around the Wheat Kings are great right now. Players are having fun and working hard, the coaches are pleased with the effort level, and every night it seems like someone new is showing a level of growth they haven’t displayed before. Watching guys find that “next gear” is one of the joys of my job.
Of course, every other team in the league has guys finding a new gear too. With two more divisional opponents on deck and a merciless schedule (Wednesday night started a run of nine games in 17 days) finding a new gear is not a guarantee of getting ahead, but a necessity in order to keep up.
