Wheat Kings eager to get started

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This article was published 24/09/2022 (873 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Wheat Kings kick off their 56th Western Hockey League season against the visiting Winnipeg Ice tonight, just in the nick of time for the team’s players.

Brandon hasn’t seen meaningful action since falling in triple overtime in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal loss to the Red Deer Rebels on May 1, 146 days ago.

Second-year defenceman Quinn Mantei is itching to get the season started.

“It’s definitely exciting,” Mantei said. “It kind of felt like a long off-season after a tough ending last year so it was nice to get into some (pre-season) games but it will be nice to officially get it going. It’s really exciting.”

Fellow 17-year-old Trae Johnson agreed.

“I’ve been excited since the playoffs when we last played games that matter,” Johnson said. “We have a good group here and it’s going to be a fun year.”

The doors open tonight at 6, with player introductions at 6:50 and the puck set to drop after the anthem at 7. A fireworks show in the south parking lot will follow the game.

Head coach Don MacGillivray said it’s a great night every year.

“The home opener is always exciting,” MacGillivray said. “There is kind of a buzz in the room with the anticipation of starting a new year. Everybody is coming off a summer where they worked out and trained hard and are seemingly looking for a new opportunity and have set personal goals, and we’ve set goals for the team too.

“It’s always nice to be in your own building for the first game. I’m really looking forward to it.”

The happy news for the Wheat Kings is they’ll have everyone available tonight other than Jake Chiasson, who remains at Edmonton Oilers main camp. A year ago, with some top players still at pro camps and a raft of injuries, the Wheat Kings were only able to dress 19 skaters in a 10-2 loss to Winnipeg.

Overage defenceman Mason Ward was one of the guys out that night.

“By the looks of it right now, everyone is healthy and everyone is ready to go,” Ward said. “We’ll have a full roster for our home opener. Last year, things obviously didn’t go the way we wanted. No one really expected last year to happen so you can’t really think about that now.

“It’s a new year so we’ll try to get off to a hot start and just keep it going from there.”

MacGillivray is looking at it the same way.

A year ago, the Wheat Kings couldn’t catch a break with injuries. This year they’re fine, at least so far.

“I don’t want to look back,” MacGillivray said. “Last year was kind of an anomaly. We’ve always had healthy scratches at the home opener and last year we didn’t, but last year is last year. We’re onto this year and we’ve got some decisions to make and still have some battles going on internally. I think it will be a good group that hits the ice here (tonight).”

The biggest problem for the Wheat Kings is they could be playing in the toughest division in the league this season. That starts with Winnipeg, who will be skating without pro campers Conor Geekie, Matt Savoie, Carson Lambos and Mikey Milne tonight but are a pre-season favourite to reign atop the Eastern Conference’s regular season standings for a second season in a row.

“They’re going to be missing a couple of guys but have a guy who is potentially going to be rated in the top 10 (Zach Benson), they’ve got some other good players who have been in the league a long time, like (Owen) Pederson and (Connor) McClennon, a solid D corps, a good goalie,” MacGillivray said. “They’re a pretty deep team and we’ll expect them to be a real tough challenge.”

But they’re hardly the division’s only good team.

Elsewhere, the Moose Jaw Warriors have the dynamic duo of Jagger Firkus and Brayden Yager up front and Denton Mateychuk on the blue-line, the Regina Pats have Connor Bedard, the Saskatoon Blades picked up Conner Roulette in a trade and the Prince Albert Raiders traditionally give the Wheat Kings fits with their relentless work ethic.

All six should certainly be battle tested by the time the 2023 post-season rolls around.

“Our division is really, really tough so we’re going to have to come to play every night and get better each and every day when we do play those teams,” MacGillivray said. “We have to quickly learn from our mistakes because we will have some times during the season when we aren’t at our best, but we will have to learn from those quickly.”

“There isn’t a free space on the bingo card,” he added.

Incredibly, Bedard, Yager, Benson and Brandon’s Nate Danielson are all projected to be top-10 picks in the upcoming 2023 National Hockey League draft.

“I think it’s going to be hard in our division,” general manager Marty Murray said. “I think it’s going to be really, really strong this year with some real high-end players. Just looking at the draft preview, there could be four picks in the top 10 of the NHL draft in our division this year. It’s exciting. Night in and night out, you have to realize who you’re on the ice against and play the game the right way.

“We want to establish our team with an identity that will be hard to play against and play with passion and skate. If we have that every night, we give ourselves a chance and that’s what we’re asking for here in the early going.”

After a relaxed start to the season — Brandon only plays twice in the first 11 days — the Wheat Kings finish up a four-game home stand and then head out to visit the Western Conference’s B.C. Division for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign.

“It will be fun,” Murray said. “It’s always exciting to get to that next phase. The first one is rookie camp, and then main camp and then pre-season, and now regular season.

“It’s been three weeks of working and sorting through some things and now it’s time to get to the real stuff here.”

ICINGS: Other dates of note for the Wheat Kings this season include the league deadline to reduce to three overage players (Oct. 10), Christmas break (Dec. 18-27), WHL trade deadline (Jan. 10) and the end of the regular season (March 25).

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