For the second game in a row, the second period was the most offensively prolific for the Wheat Kings. This time, however, they locked things down in the third.
Brady Turko scored twice, and Carson Bjarnason was stellar with 32 saves, many of the highlight reel variety, as the Wheat Kings beat the Kamloops Blazers 6-3. Carter Klippenstein, Quinn Mantei, Nolan Flamand, and Caleb Hadland also scored.
“The first, we were on our heels, we didn’t manage the puck well at all and gave up a lot of odd man rushes,” said head coach and GM Marty Murray. “Barney had to make some big saves to keep us in there. We were still a little loose for my liking in the second period but we were able to execute a lot of nicer plays. It’s fun to score goals, but there has to be a nice balance there. We can score goals and still be good defensively.”
On one of several odd-man rushes in the first period, the Blazers opened the scoring. Bjarnason made a sprawling first stop, but Tommy Lafreniere beat the Wheat Kings to the rebound and calmly deposited it.
The Wheat Kings got their answer off a sweet spinning pass from Dominik Petr. Petr held the line at the right point and fed the point to Klippenstein in the clear, and Klippenstein got a good bounce off his backhand move to tie the score.
For most of their first penalty kill of the game, the Wheat Kings were strong but when they failed to clear the Blazers made them pay. John Szabo worked to his right on his backhand, drawing two Wheat Kings with him, and then fed the puck back door to a waiting Max Sullivan for the tap-in.
A cascade of second period goals, most of them for the Wheat Kings, started with a passing play between Klippenstein and Turko. As he’d gotten a spinning pass on the tape in the first, Klippenstein gave one back in the second, and from the right circle Turko made no mistake with a laser of a shot.
Another penalty against could’ve swung the momentum back against the Wheat Kings, but instead it shifted it into their corner. Matteo Michels broke in up the left wall and patiently waited for help, and Mantei leapt up to join. From the top of the right circle, Mantei rifled home his fifth of the season.
The Wheat Kings (and Turko) were just getting started. Off a neutral zone turnover, Turko broke back in two-on-one and looked shot the whole way, this time snapping one blocker side, forcing the Blazers to call time out.
Given their own first power play of the game, the Wheat Kings cashed in. Petr took the handoff from Mantei at the left point and zipped a puck across the seam to Flamand, who kept his point streak going with a tap-in goal.
Before the period was out, the Blazers had stemmed the tide. Emmitt Finnie carved his way from the right wall to the slot, drove to his left, and stuffed in a forehand deke to make it 5-3.
The third period saw an incredible run of chances. The Wheat Kings had two breakaways. The Blazers had a penalty shot. All of them came up empty. But when the Blazers, on the power play, pulled their goalie for an extra man, Hadland cashed in to salt the win away.
The Wheat Kings will travel tomorrow before a tough test to wrap up their road trip. They’ll face the Prince George Cougars on Friday night at 9:00 Central Time.
