Through forty minutes, the Brandon Wheat Kings were in a close game with the Medicine Hat Tigers, down by just one in a back and forth affair. In the third, however, the road miles seemed to catch up to them.
Jaxon Jacobson, Nicholas Johnson, and Carter Klippenstein all scored but the Wheat Kings fell 7-3 to the Medicine Hat Tigers. Jayden Kraus stopped 32 shots in the loss.
“They’re a good team, they skate,” said Wheat Kings’ head coach and GM Marty Murray. “The travel and the amount of hockey we’ve played in the last ten days caught up to us. You could see some fatigue.”
On their first power play of the game, the Wheat Kings opened the scoring. Jordan Gavin got the puck at the bottom of the right circle and sent it across the seam to Jacobson, who out-waited a sprawling Carter Casey and snapped it home.
The Tigers responded after picking off a breakout pass and working the puck to Noah Davidson at the bottom of the left circle. He drove the net and roofed a backhand to square the score at one.
Early in the second, the Wheat Kings got their first even strength tally of the game. Luke Mistelbacher won a battle and sent the puck to Johnson at the right circle, and he rifled his ninth of the campaign over Casey’s shoulder.
The Tigers roared back, however. First, Kyle Heger’s point shot found its way through a maze of bodies in front of Kraus to tie the game. Then, Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll fired a shot off Kraus’s right pad that left a rebound for Liam Ruck that he lifted in.
Off the rush, the Tigers built their lead further. Ethan Neutens broke in 2-on-1 and fired a shot to the top corner from the top of the right circle for the 4-2 lead.
Before the second period was out, the Wheat Kings got back within one. Grayson Burzynski got the puck at the top of the left circle and spotted Klippenstein driving the net, putting it right on his tape. Klippenstein made no mistake from the lip of the crease to cut the lead in half.
The Tigers restored the two-goal lead on their power play, however. Bryce Pickford took the one-timer from the top of the left circle and hammered it past Kraus for the 5-3 lead.
After the Wheat Kings were stymied on an odd-man rush at one end, the Tigers struck on one at the other. They worked the puck from left to right and back again to Tyson Moss who snapped home his fourth in the last two games.
The Tigers added a little salt in the wound late at 4-on-4 with Jonas Woo firing a similar one-timer to the one Pickford had scored on earlier to make it 7-3. From there the clock would tick down and the Wheat Kings’ win streak would end at seven.
The Wheat Kings still have a chance, however, to end the pre-Christmas schedule on a high note and go 3-1 on their Alberta road trip. They travel to Calgary to face the Hitmen on Friday afternoon at 2:00 Central Time.
