I grew up in a house full of Gary Larson and Bill Watterson collections, and I find myself reminded of a Gary Larson cartoon after the Wheat Kings last game.
In the cartoon in question, two buildings (“The Institute for the Study of Migraine Headaches” and “Floyd’s School For Marching Bands) are side by side and an angry mob, armed to the teeth, is coming out of the former building to attack the latter. The caption simply reads: The Dam Bursts.
The reason I’m reminded of this particular Far Side cartoon is evident to anyone who watched the Wheat Kings’ last outing. A lot of dams burst in that one. The power play got its first two goals of the season, the penalty kill got its first shorthanded goal, Jaxon Jacobson got his first goal and then two more assists to boot, Brett Wilson got his first of the season, the list goes on and on out of that 6-2 victory.
That win over the Royals is a small sample within a small sample; numerous coaches have told me now they find evaluating their opponents and even themselves very difficult this early in the season. But as Marty Murray pointed out after the win in Victoria, that’s the kind of game that in six months you could look back on and say that was the moment it all came together.
We’ve discussed such games from the Wheat Kings in the past and always arrived at the same conclusion: games of that nature become only what you make them into. If the Wheat Kings want to make that game into a positive turning point, the process of shaping it into one begins right away against the Vancouver Giants.
As ever, the work continues.
- During my last piece, and more than once on my broadcasts, I’ve expressed my opinion that the East Division will be exceedingly strong this season, probably the strongest in the WHL. Less than a week after I wrote this, five East Division teams went up against non-divisional opponents on the same night. All five of them lost. Is it possible to press box jinx an entire division? If so, I can absolutely promise not to use this power responsibly. But I do stand by my belief in the strength of the East Division as a whole.
- Of all the ways the Wheat Kings asserted themselves in the win over the Royals, perhaps none was more impressive than their dominance in the faceoff circle. Jaxon Jacobson was over 65 percent in the dot, an outstanding number in any other game, but of the four centres for the Wheat Kings he had statistically the lowest faceoff percentage. Prabh Bhathal led the way with 77 percent in the circle, and the remarkable thing is that’s not an especially out-of-the-blue evening for him. The 17-year-old is 71.4 percent on the season so far. Colin Grubb followed close on his heels with 76 percent, and rookie Levi Ellingsen won two thirds of his draws (which, again, isn’t insanely far off his seasonal average of 60.9 percent).
- Last season, it seemed like the road brought out the best in Gunnar Gleasman, who had some of his best moments on the U.S. road trip. He’s been coming nicely into his own in B.C. as well, and I don’t just mean with two fights in two games. He had two great chances in Prince George and finished a hit-of-the-year candidate in Victoria, after which I couldn’t help but notice no one seemed inclined to try their luck with him; usually, a hit of that magnitude draws an immediate response. He also had what I would described as a very mature fight against Jonas Kohn, with both guys protecting themselves very well. Sometimes when young players fight there’s a tendency to swing for the fences with no thought of defending. This was the opposite, a more tactical, defensive bout between two guys who had a much less measured fight in Brandon last year.
- The game that saw a hit-of-the-year candidate featured a save-of-the-year candidate as well. Goalies don’t always get flowers after a 6-2 win, but Filip Ruzicka deserves his for that performance. On the surface of it, 27 saves doesn’t seem extraordinary but looking at those saves you notice several critical ones and at least two worthy of the highlight reel. His scorpion save on Filip Novak in particular is one you’ll see on some year-end montages. Neither goal against was one you would reasonably ask a goaltender to stop. The big Minnesota Wild pick looks nicely settled in already. By contrast, by this date last season he’d only just arrived in Brandon and hadn’t even made his WHL debut yet.
- Seven of the top-nine forwards got on the scoresheet for the Wheat Kings in the win over Victoria but probably none of those was more important for the team than Jaxon Jacobson, who emphatically threw the monkey off his back and booted it into the crowd in celebration. And in a “when it rains it pours” type moment, he picked up two more assists before the game was out. Talking with Marty Murray, one thing he pointed out is while its frustrating for scorers not to score, when that first one goes in its often followed by a bevy of others. They were always going to start going in for Jacobson eventually and now we get to see him with a little more spring in his step going into Vancouver and Kamloops.
- During training camp we spoke about the problem (if such it can be called) that nobody was playing themselves out of the lineup. Such is the case right now with the young blueliners on the Wheat Kings. Cruz Jim, Easten Turko, and Ethan Young have each been excellent in their turn. I was especially impressed by their performance in Prince George. A big, strong Cougars forward group went right at the rookie blueliners on the forecheck, and the three freshman defensemen dodged aside, absorbed the hits, or out-skated their forecheckers every time and did well not to turn pucks over. All three gave as good as they got on the physical side too. Despite being the smallest of the three, Cruz Jim has thrown some jarring hits on this trip. And therein lies the delightful problem: how do you decide who to give the ice time or the lineup spots to night in and night out? It is a good problem though, because you know none of them will let you down.
- Again we come to the small sample size caveat, but what a pickup Cole Slobodian is turning out to be. He collected his first assist as a Wheat King on the game-winning goal, but that’s just scratching the surface of his contributions. The Brandon native was billed as a shutdown defenseman capable of playing 25 minutes a night against the other team’s best and so he has exactly been in his first two games. He and Nigel Boehm make for a formidable pair, and we’ve already seen Slobodian give Boehm more freedom to get involved offensively. Those two finished plus-four in the win over the Royals which, given the two Wheat Kings power play goals, was quite literally their best possible statistical finish.
As the Wheat Kings step on the ice for a pregame skate in Langley, I wrap this up on an off-ice note. The thickest fog I had ever driven through came when I was still in my first year calling games with the Estevan Bruins, driving back from Kindersley after a four-game playoff series win over the Klippers. That was like driving through a glass of milk and it was the densest fog I’d ever seen in person until the other night, when we were coming south from Prince George. Our bus driver, Bill, got us through safe and sound with not so much as a hiccup.
Flying out west was terrific, and it no doubt helped the players’ energy levels. Even so, bus drivers remain the MVPs of WHL road trips.
