Despite playing their second game in as many nights, the Wheat Kings opened strongly against the Prince Albert Raiders. A long series of calls went against them, however, hindering their momentum.
Chase Surkan and Aiden Foster scored but the Wheat Kings fell 4-2 to Prince Albert. Filip Ruzicka made 25 saves in the loss.
“The biggest takeaway is we had seven penalty kills and that’s way too many,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “The penalties we were taking, there’s a lot of reaching and those end up biting you. There was almost two minutes of five-on-three, which obviously hurts. To me, the difference was we used a lot of energy killing penalties.”
As the two teams went end to end without a whistle, Surkan opened the scoring and wrote his name all over the highlight reel. The sophomore forward one-handed the puck to himself, broke past a defenseman, and finished a slick backhand-forehand move to open the scoring.
A long string of calls going against the Wheat Kings finally bit them however, even after they killed off 1:06 of 5-on-3 for the Raiders. On the fourth Raiders’ power play of the period, Brandon Gorzynski leaned into a one-timer and put it over Ruzicka’s shoulder to tie the game.
With just 24.7 left in the first, the Wheat Kings gave up a late dagger. Eli Molde broke in wide to his left and carried around the offensive zone before feeding the puck across the zone to Benett Kelly, who jumped up the left circle and sent the go-ahead goal low and hard through Ruzicka.
A much less penalty-filled second period resulted in plenty of flow, though the Wheat Kings did still have to kill off a fifth power play early. The penalty killers got it done, and the score stayed 2-1 Raiders through 40 minutes.
But early in the third, the Wheat Kings were sent to the penalty kill again, and the Raiders struck. Riley Boychuk walked toward the net from the bottom of the left circle and stuffed in a shot, then ended up on top of Ruzicka along with another Raider. Ruzicka was assessed a minor penalty for defending himself, which the Wheat Kings killed.
Late in the third, Brandon bit into the lead. Jaxon Jacobson dropped the puck off to Foster on the right wing, and Foster was able to snap a shot past the blocker of Steele Bass.
As the third wore on, however, the Wheat Kings weren’t able to get Ruzicka out for the extra man. When they finally did, Jonah Sivertson salted away the game with an empty netter.
The Wheat Kings head back home to face the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Friday night. Puck drop is 7:00 PM.
