It will count the same in the standings as their other seven victories, but the Wheat Kings’ most recent win, a 3-0 win over the Medicine Hat Tigers, feels like their biggest win of the season so far.
Undermanned and up against an opponent that had been giving them a ton of trouble for over a year, the Wheat Kings got an early lead and, thanks to excellent goaltending and timely shot blocks, never surrendered it. It took two empty netters to salt the game away, but the team finally got over the mental hurdle that is Medicine Hat, and got goaltender Carson Bjarnason his first shutout of the season in doing so.
The win also pushed the Wheat Kings to 4-0-1 on a five-game homestand. Getting nine of a possible ten points, all while missing multiple forwards (including your number one centre) every single game? Excellent stuff. The Wheat Kings are rolling.
That’s not to say the team had no advantages on this homestand, however, and not to say more adversity isn’t to come. They’ll soon go from playing two games every eight days to playing three games in four days just this weekend. Two of those three are against division rivals, and the third is against a strong Lethbridge Hurricanes squad.
Times may get tougher, but on this homestand the Wheat Kings most definitely proved they can get tougher with them. They can be proud of themselves going into this weekend. Then, they’ll have to defend that pride against some tough opponents.
- I’ve spoken a lot in both this blog and the broadcasts about the forward depth of this Wheat Kings group, but maybe I’ve been taking the goaltending depth for granted. Just how good is the tandem of Bjarnason and Ethan Eskit? Well, there are three goaltenders in the entire WHL right now with save percentages above .920 and the Wheat Kings have two of them. Bjarnason leads the league with a .924 save percentage, and Eskit is right behind him at .922. Let’s take that a step further: there are some stellar seasons happening between the pipes in the OHL and QMJHL but despite that, Eskit and Bjarnason both rank top-ten in save percentage in the country. They both rank top-seven in the WHL in goals against average as well. No team in the league can put as much faith in their goaltending tandem as the Wheat Kings do. Whether it’s Eskit or Bjarnason in net, the Wheat Kings’ goalies will give them a chance to win each and every night and that’s been very apparent on this 4-0-1 stretch at home
- Keeping with the theme of goalies, we’re getting to the time of year where speculation about the makeup of Canada’s roster for the World Juniors is going to kick into high gear. One of the most prominent speculative lists came from TSN Head Scout Craig Button, and he did not have Bjarnason listed among his goaltenders. He chose instead Scott Ratzlaff of the Seattle Thunderbirds, Carter George of the Owen Sound Attack, and Joshua Ravensbergen of the Prince George Cougars. Now, no disrespect to Craig (who released this list prior to Bjarnason’s 33-save shutout of Medicine Hat) but I think Bjarnason’s position on that list bears re-evaluating. Not only was Bjarnason rock -solid in the summer evaluation camp, he’s been the best of those four goaltenders this season by no small margin. In fact, if tryouts for Canada started today, Bjarnason would come into camp not only as the highest-drafted goaltender of the four but the only one with either a save percentage above .900 or a GAA below 3.00, never mind that he’d be the only one with both. I fully understand why Craig put all three goaltenders on his list; Ratzlaff made the team last year and deserved to, Ravensbergen is a probable first-round pick in the coming draft, and George is a mainstay for Hockey Canada already despite his youth, having won gold medals at the U18s and Hlinka Gretzky Cup. But for all that, Bjarnason has been comfortably the best of the four of them this season. He’s already outdueled Ratzlaff in their only head-to-head meeting (in which he let in just one goal on 38 shots in a 4-1 win). Right now, I think Canada would be well served to bring him to Ottawa.
- Now let’s keep it with the theme of Team Canada: Jaxon Jacobson and Canada Red are going to play for a medal at the World Under-17s, and if Gio Pantelas’s Canada White can win their quarterfinal against Finland tomorrow they’ll get to as well. Jacobson is his team’s co-leading scorer and has been one of Red’s most effective players through the young tournament so far. Marty Murray said he expected Jaxon to play like he wanted to be the best player in the tournament, and so far he’s at least got to be in the conversation. Gio, meanwhile, has steadily played his way into more ice time and has picked up an assist at the event as well (bear in mind, he’s only played two games so far). As I mentioned in the last blog, players often come back from this tournament with renewed confidence but these two were playing with plenty of that already. What heights might they hit when they get back to WHL action?
- By the time Jaxon and Gio are back (we now know at least one of them will be playing on Saturday) the Wheat Kings will be healthier than they’ve been since opening weekend (if, touch wood, the rest of the team remains healthy). Dominik Petr made his return to the ice against the Tigers and punctuated it with the second empty net goal of the game, and Easton Odut, who has been out since just after the game against Lethbridge on October 12, looks like a solid bet to return to the lineup this weekend. He’s been skating in a regular sweater and taking normal line rushes in practice, so don’t be surprised if he’s ready to go for the rumble in Regina on November 8. Odut scored his first WHL goal in Regina on opening weekend, so he certainly won’t mind returning to action in a building with such a great memory.
- Speaking of opening weekend memories in Regina, that was where forward Nicholas Johnson scored his natural hat trick, complete with a game-winning goal in the first road game of the season. Unfortunately, that’s also the last time he played in a game. Johnson is also making progress on a return to the lineup however. He’s been skating both on his own and with the team, and while at last glance he still had the red no-contact sweater on in practice he was taking a fairly regular rotation in the drills. Johnson could be the most important injury return the Wheat Kings have had so far. His size, strength, and shot make him a force to be reckoned with up front and in the win over Regina he demonstrated his ability to beat goaltenders cleanly with his release. If the Wheat Kings decide to use him as a net front presence on the power play, he’ll excel there with his 6-foot-2 200-pound frame. If they decide to use him as a shooter, he can more than fill that role as well. After so much time away due to injury it will take time for him to get back up to game speed, but when he returns the forward group for the Wheat Kings will unquestionably be more dangerous for it, and harder to play against too.
- One final note from the win over Medicine Hat before the Wheat Kings close the book on that game and look ahead to the next one: Marty Murray trusted Marcus Nguyen, Matteo Michels, and Carter Klippenstein to shut down the line of Gavin McKenna, Oasiz Weisblatt, and Hunter St. Martin and they delivered across the board. This ultra-potent line for Medicine Hat, which combined for a jaw-dropping 16 points the previous night in Regina, didn’t pick up even one point against the Wheat Kings and only managed a combined eight shots on goal. For perspective, Nguyen had that many all on his own. This was a big part of the reason the Wheat Kings outshot the Tigers 38-33 and didn’t just have to white-knuckle their way through a siege by the WHL’s scariest offense, letting Bjarnason single-handedly carry them to a victory. Considering that trio of Tigers is one of the deadliest forward units in the league (McKenna still leads the WHL in points despite not scoring in that game), there will be quite a few coaches reviewing tape of that game to see how Nguyen, Michels, and Klippenstein did it. Maybe that’s a trio the Wheat Kings come back to for that purpose again.
Now begins a busier stretch than the Wheat Kings have gotten used to, but the players I’ve spoken to say they prefer to have more games than the handful they’ve been getting. On some level the time between games has been ideal (the injured players needed time to heal and the players who remained in the lineup needed time to recover from their increased workload) but now the team can get back to a more consistent schedule and I don’t think any of the players will be complaining about it.
That busier stretch begins on Friday night against a Regina Pats team that has hit a rough patch to say the least. They’ve dropped their last six in a row and haven’t won since that eye-popping 8-0 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds on October 19, so they’ll be eager to get back into the win column. And you can never underestimate a team that holds a bit of a grudge against you as rivals tend to do. The Pats and Wheat Kings simply don’t like each other, and if nothing else the Wheat Kings should be prepared for an intense, heavy game on Friday night.
Luckily, the team knows full well it can take whatever the Pats throw at them. After all, they’ve had a lot thrown at them in the last month and not only come out standing, but come out winning.
