It took extra, extra time before the Brandon Wheat Kings managed a 3-2 shootout triumph over the visiting Saskatoon Blades Friday night.
Sophomore Wheaties’ forward Caleb Hadland scored the lone goal of the skills competition after 13 attempts between the two teams were stopped. Former Bridge City Bunch centre Jayden Wiens opened the scoring in the first period with Easton Armstrong on a power play and Trevor Wong giving the Blue and Gold a lead through 40 minutes. Luke Shipley forced overtime with a short-handed tally in the third period in a game that was dominated by goaltenders Carson Bjarnason of Brandon and Austin Elliott of the Blades. Saskatoon out-shot the Wheat Kings 37-36 through three periods and the five-minute overtime frame. The Wheaties finished an eight-game homestand with a 7-1-0 record and improved to 18-12-5 for the season while, despite not celebrating a win, the Bridge City Bunch extended their points in the standings streak to 12 games, now 9-0-3, and the overall record is 24-8-3. The same teams meet Monday at SaskTel Centre to ring in the New Year. Game time is 4 o’clock with CJWW’s brioadcast starting at 3:45 p.m. with the Palliser Rooms E-Q-3 Cutting Edge Pre-Game Show. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Les Lazaruk’s Post-Game Show chat with head coach Brennan Sonne and the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L…..
Saskatoon Blades 2 at Brandon Wheat Kings 3 (SO) – Status: Final SO
Friday, December 29, 2023 – Westoba Place – Brandon, MB
Saskatoon 0 2 0 0 – 2
Brandon 1 0 1 0 – 3
1st Period-1, Brandon, Wiens 11 (Flamand, Mantei), 9:01. Penalties-Sidorov Sas (slew-footing, slew-footing), 10:55; DeSouza Bdn (holding), 20:00.
2nd Period-2, Saskatoon, Armstrong 19 (Lisowsky, Wong), 1:11 (PP). 3, Saskatoon, Wong 8 (Sidorov, Andrusiak), 2:57. Penalties-served by Melnyk Sas (too many men), 13:09; Lisowsky Sas (tripping), 15:48.
3rd Period-4, Brandon, Shipley 6 (Hadland), 10:37 (SH). Penalties-Armstrong Sas (hooking), 5:02; Hyland Bdn (holding), 9:31.
OT Period- No Scoring.Penalties-No Penalties
Shootout – Saskatoon 0 (Lisowsky NG, Sidorov NG, Wong NG, Armstrong NG, Siepmann NG, Hansen NG, Moore NG), Brandon 1 (McQueen NG, Hyland NG, Wiens NG, Petr NG, Roersma NG, Flamand NG, Hadland G).
Shots on Goal-Saskatoon 11-14-10-2-0-37. Brandon 11-13-7-5-1-37.
Power Play Opportunities-Saskatoon 1 / 2; Brandon 0 / 5.
Goalies-Saskatoon, Elliott 15-4-2-1 (36 shots-34 saves). Brandon, Bjarnason 14-7-3-1 (37 shots-35 saves).
A-3,131
Referees-Josh Grimm (76), Bryce Sebastian (64).
Linesmen-Ryan Cooke (150), Josh Miko (128).
