Most 16 year olds are not expected to come into the WHL and immediately set the league ablaze. The Wheat Kings have known for some time, however, that Chase Surkan is not most 16 year olds.
Surkan scored the game winning goal with under a minute to go, and Filip Ruzicka was strong again with 24 saves as the Wheat Kings beat the Moose Jaw Warriors 2-1. Brady Turko also picked him his 10th of the season in the win. The victory was the 100th in the career of Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray.
“It was almost first one to ten in the first four (against Moose Jaw) and tonight was more of a regular hockey game,” Murray said. “I thought the guys played really well. I thought it was one of our best 60-minute efforts of the year.”
For the second home game in a row, the line of Caleb Hadland, Jimmy Egan, and Turko opened the scoring. As they worked a cycle, Egan handed it off to Turko at the right circle. Turko deked past a defender, cut to his backhand, and out-waited Chase Wutzke to tuck in his first of the season.
All through the second period, the Wheat Kings fought for the insurance marker. They outshot the Warriors 16-4 and thought they had some breathing room when Cam Allard snapped one past Wutzke. But the goal was waved off for goaltender interference and the Wheat Kings remained up 1-0 into the second intermission.
Early in the third, Moose Jaw finally broke through. Connor Schmidt worked his way off the right wing wall and fired a spinning shot on net that went low and hard past Ruzicka to tie it up.
The two teams traded glorious chances through the rest of the third. Both goaltenders turned them all aside, sometimes with circus saves, other times with help from shot blockers.
When the Wheat Kings got a timely shot block late, they turned a 4-on-3 rush for Moose Jaw into a 2-on-1 rush the other way with Surkan and Dylan Ronald. Surkan kept it for the shot from the top of the left circle and sniped his second consecutive game-winning goal with just over 42 seconds left to play.
The Warriors hustled to get Wutzke out for the extra man, but by then there was too little time for them to fight back. The Wheat Kings shut the door and took their third straight win.
The Wheat Kings stay on home ice for the next two games starting on Wednesday night when they host the Lethbridge Hurricanes. Puck drop is 7:00.
