Fans have spent all summer wondering what the Brandon Wheat Kings’ roster will look like on opening night, debating which of the returning players will step up, waiting to see which of the rookies will have the biggest impact, and speculating on where the team might stand relative to their division rivals.
In just over 48 hours, all the speculation becomes moot.
Any question you still have about the Wheat Kings, the team will begin to answer in just over two days time at their home opener. They lead off, as they did last season, with a home showdown against the Moose Jaw Warriors, followed swiftly by a rematch in Moose Jaw the very next night.
The Wheat Kings you see in those two games will be about as close to the full roster as we’ve seen yet. Carter Klippenstein and Brady Turko remain away at camp with the Minnesota Wild and Anaheim Ducks respectively, but the team announced today their other four NHL campers (Caleb Hadland, Luke Mistelbacher, Grayson Burzynski, and Jayden Kraus) are all back in Brandon.
That full roster, incidentally, seems to have the rest of the WHL fairly impressed. The Hockey News, for example, projects the Wheat Kings will finish second in the Eastern Conference. A number of other WHL observers have the Wheat Kings similarly high up the standings. Ask the players themselves and you’ll hear similar confidence in their final result.
The preseason is done, several new Wheat Kings have signed their Scholarship and Development agreements, and many of the training camp battles have finally been decided. The countdown to regular season hockey is on.
It’s good to be back.
- It can be hard to learn much of anything in the preseason when teams dress so little of their eventual roster on any given night, but we did learn a few things about not only the team but individual players. We learned, for instance, that Chase Surkan, despite an assist-heavy stat line in the TELUS Cup, can fill a sniper’s role just as well as a set-up role. With five goals and eight points in four games, Surkan finished first on the Wheat Kings and tied for third in the entire WHL in preseason scoring. He capped his impressive exhibition run off with a two-goal performance against Swift Current in the neutral site game in Virden. It remains to be seen where in the lineup he’ll fit on opening night now that so much of the team’s NHL talent is back, but he teased an incredible offensive skillset over the course of the preseason.
- Another thing we learned about this team during the preseason: goalscoring doesn’t seem to be a problem. Defensive results were mixed (the team surrendered five goals in each of their first three games before tightening up in the fourth) but offensively, the team scored 18 goals in four preseason games at a time when several of their likely leading scorers are away. All along this team has said its offensive depth will be a calling card. The preseason seemed to be our first official confirmation of this. The trick is not to rely on goalscoring to fix your problems all the time, and to tighten up defensively (which should be significantly easier now that Burzynski and, for that matter, Kraus are back with the team).
- By the time the final game against Swift Current rolled around, the team still didn’t have much clarity on a few of their battles, but one player who was increasingly demanding of a spot with his play was defenseman Max Lavoie. In his final game of the exhibition schedule, Lavoie was his usual nasty self but also sound defensively with some timely shot and pass blocks, and after the game Marty Murray said it was the best game Lavoie had played, describing him as a force on the ice. Two days later, Lavoie signed with the team. I’m curious to see how other teams handle him once the regular season begins. Lavoie’s style of throwback nasty defense is tailor-made to drive opponents crazy.
- Speaking of driving opponents crazy, Wheat Kings fans reacted with unreserved glee when the team announced another signing: that of forward Gunnar Gleasman. It’s easy to understand why, because you can well imagine the impact he, like Lavoie, will have on other teams’ sanity. Some guys are 5-foot-10 and play like they’re 6-foot-4. Gunnar is 6-foot-4 and plays like he’s 6-foot-8. He’ll finish every check he gets an opportunity to finish, and he hits explosively thanks to a surprisingly quick skating stride for a man of his size. His speed and shot were both notable in the preseason, but his size and willingness to use it are a big draw for him. The team has said over and over again they want to be harder to play against. Gleasman and Lavoie embody that.
- If you want to talk hard to play against, the Wheat Kings could run an opening night lineup that includes Caleb Hadland, Joby Baumuller, Nick Johnson, Gunnar Gleasman, Ben Binder Nord, Easton Odut, Max Lavoie, Gio Pantelas, Nigel Boehm, and Grayson Burzynski (who has told me more than once now that he aims to be a heavier physical presence this season as befits his 6-foot-4 frame). I’m curious to see what an offseason to gain both height and a bit of weight will do for Binder Nord’s game in particular now that the games actually matter. He was the master of getting under other teams’ skin last season. And with a lineup like that, the Wheat Kings could have someone capable of making life difficult for their opponents on the ice for literally every second of any given game.
- The last but perhaps most important training camp battle came to an end this week when the Wheat Kings reassigned goaltender Dylan McFadyen and signed older netminder Hudson Perry. In my mind, it was the last game of the preseason that really won Perry this battle as he stopped 29 of 31 shots against Swift Current and even came up with a game-saver late when the Wheat Kings, who’d had a 3-1 lead entering the third, let the Broncos gain a little ground on them near the end. Perry was a calming influence that game, shutting down chances off the rush, and while the Wheat Kings were definitely better defensively than they’d been the previous three contests, it’s inevitable that at some point in a 60-minute game there are going to be some chances on your net. When those happen, you need a goaltender not just to make saves but to look comfortable doing so and to know how to kill plays when things get hectic. Perry was exactly that for the Wheat Kings that night.
- Alas we have no highlights to show from that game in Virden, but if we did there’s not much doubt whose goal would be highlight of the preseason. Joby Baumuller scored a spectacular goal in the second period of that game, toe-dragging his way past a Broncos’ defender and, as soon as he was in position, rifling a shot right by their netminder. Baumuller was physical in that game too, finishing several hard checks on the forecheck. Both his preseason goals showed good hands and a quick release, and it looks like his confidence is up heading into the season.
- Though he ultimately was reassigned, the preseason was nothing less than a marvelous success for Carson Ralph. The undrafted forward was a force on both sides of the puck all through camp, played all four preseason games, scored a huge goal in the third period on home ice, and played a physical brand of hockey. It’s not yet certain where he’ll play his U18 hockey this season (St. Albert’s AAA team seems a good bet) but Ralph has been signed by the team and knows he’s earned a place in their future plans. Now he just has to carry that momentum into his U18 season, and maybe earn himself a call-up or two before the season is over. Between his speed, shot, and heavy hitting style, he could be a force in the AAA ranks, which would be the perfect stepping stone to a full-time roster spot next season.
- As they did last season, the Wheat Kings will open the season against the Moose Jaw Warriors. One thing that strikes me right away about this Moose Jaw team is they are going to have a lot of capable puck movers on the back end. Russell native Aiden Ziprick leads the way there, but between Connor Schmidt, Aaron Sawatzky, and Nolan Paquette they’ve got a long list of returning guys who can zip the puck up ice. Looking over their incoming young defensemen, the pattern continues with players like Colt Carter, Cohen Williams, Benson Hirst, and William Degagne all putting together solid or even remarkable offensive seasons last year in other leagues (how in the world was Colt Carter a sixth round pick?). The Warriors’ defense isn’t physically massive (almost the Yin to the Wheat Kings’ Yang in this regard) but it is mobile. Last season, the Warriors scored 21 goals (not counting shootout goals) against the Wheat Kings. Six of those goals came from defensemen, and while that’s not an overpowering number it is one worth remembering. Brandon will have to have an eye out for defensemen jumping into the rush to provide offense.
You’ll find little in the way of line speculation in this blog. Two of the Wheat Kings’ veteran forwards remain away at NHL camps, after all, and those that have returned have only been in two practices by now. The lines will be subject to changes on any given night until the team finds a winning formula. Maybe they’ll find it right away, maybe they’ll find it after some tinkering, but it’s too early to say what they’ve found just yet.
After all, speculation seems all the more fruitless when we can measure the time to opening night in hours. The excitement that has been building all summer will finally get some release on Friday night.
