Photo by Brandi Pollock
Moose Jaw, SK (CKLQ) – The Brandon Wheat Kings capped off the WHL pre-season with a 3-2 shootout victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors on Sunday afternoon.
The Warriors opened the scoring early in the 2nd period when Swan River’s Tristin Langan beat Jiri Patera on the powerplay.
The lead would quickly evaporate as Lynden McCallum took the puck off the ensuing faceoff, made a spectacular spin move to feed Ben McCartney back door who tied the game. The goal came just seven seconds after Moose Jaw opened the scoring.
Brandon would take their first lead of the game midway through the second period on an innocent looking play to the net. Baron Thompson flipped the puck towards the net and it pinballed in off Rylan Bettens leg and under Warriors goalie Adam Evanoff.
In the third, the Wheat Kings would get hemmed in their own end early and the Warriors made them pay. Tyler Smithies re-directed home a point shot to tie the game and send the game to overtime.
Despite a number of quality scoring chances, neither team could find the back of the net in overtime.
Ben McCartney would score the only goal of the shootout to lift the Wheat Kings to victory.
Jiri Patera made 22 saves in his WHL debut including stopping all three shooters in the shootout.
These two teams will meet again on Friday night when the WHL Regular Season opens on Friday night.
SCORING SUMMARY
1st PERIOD
No Scoring
Shots: 7-4 Brandon
2nd PERIOD
MJ – Tristan Langin (Schuldhaus, Hamaluik) 3:22
BWK – Ben McCartney (McCallum) 3:29
BWK – Rylan Bettens (Thompson, Schneider) 11:12
Shots: 11-8 Brandon
3rd PERIOD
MJ – Tyler Smithies (Benson) 2:48
Shots: 9-1 Moose Jaw
OVERTIME
No Scoring
Final Shots: 24-21 Moose Jaw
SHOOTOUT
BWK
McCartney – GOAL
Burzan – GOAL
MJ
Buyalski – NO GOAL
STEPANOV – NO GOAL
POPPLE – NO GOAL