Peaks and Valleys: Wheat Kings persevered for first title in two decades

By Perry Bergson

Like all good stories, the Brandon Wheat Kings’ season was a tale told in three acts.

The top-ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League’s pre-season poll started hot, cooled considerably
and then found its game again as it earned a WHL title, the organization’s first in exactly 20 years.

Wheat Kings head coach and general manager Kelly McCrimmon said his older, more experienced team
has done a good job of growing and improving in the last nine months.

“I think we have confidence that when we play the right way we’ll be rewarded,” McCrimmon said. “Probably a big piece of it is having the mental toughness to stick with it. I think the guys have made strides in that area all season.”

After a solid 8-1-0-2 start, the first signs of trouble came during the team’s annual West Coast trip with
blowout losses in Seattle and Portland.

The Wheat Kings went 7-7-0-0 over the next month, with both special teams units languishing near the bottom of the league. But after starting to right the ship in December — oddly following the departure of Ivan Provorov, John Quenneville, Jayce Hawryluk and McCrimmon to World Junior camps — the wheels fell off on Jan. 2.

Missing half a dozen regulars and dressing two affiliate players, the Wheat Kings were blitzed 10–0 by the Red Deer Rebels in the second game of a three-in-three-nights road trip in Alberta.

“That was a huge building block for our team,” Brandon forward Tyler Coulter said. “It was almost kind of a realization of how everybody was getting ready to push in the second half of the season. We saw that so it was a turning point for us.”

Cue the third act.

Buoyed by the return of their World Junior players and finally getting healthy in a season in which their
players lost more than 200 games to injury and other absences, the Wheat Kings went 25-6-2-0 down the stretch.

And while the Edmonton Oil Kings gave them a scare by winning the first two games of their quarter-final series in Brandon, the Wheat Kings took the next four and then beat Moose Jaw, Red Deer and Seattle to earn the team’s third WHL title in their 49-year history in the league.

The 2014–15 powerhouse team won the regular-season title and lost in the league final, but players say that this year’s team has done a better job of handling the bad times.

“One thing about this team that we didn’t have last year was the adversity we had to face,” over-age forward Tim McGauley said. “There were moments when we were struggling real hard and we had to build ourselves up from the bottom again. We battled through it and we persevered.”

The Wheat Kings successfully accepted McCrimmon’s challenge to allow the fewest goals in the Eastern Conference this season. Brandon may be known for its dynamic offence that scored 319 times, but the Wheat Kings gave up 197 goals, fourth best in the league. That was short of McCrimmon’s goal but illustrated the commitment to playing a 200-foot game.

“We’re more defensive-minded this year, and I think it’s helped us gain confidence in the playoffs,” Macoy Erkamps said. “We play more like a playoff team this year than we did last year.”

Special teams played a significant role as Brandon finished with 100 points for the ninth time in franchise history. After the slow start, both units finished in the top five, the first time the Wheat Kings have done that in 13 seasons.

Brandon has a number of players who play key roles but none larger than Provorov. The Russian blueliner, who was named the best defenceman in the Eastern Conference in both years he’s been in the league, is a complete player who led the WHL in scoring by defencemen with 73 points and also won the plus/minus crown at plus-64.

He’s paired with Erkamps, an overager who finished second in league scoring with 71 points.

The Wheat Kings base their game on speed and puck possession. The defencemen make quick first passes and are encouraged to join the rush. The forwards are relentless in cycling the puck in the offensive zone.

As a result, in their first 88 regular season and playoff games, they outshot their opponents 72 times.

They’re also a team without a traditional first line. Hawryluk plays with Coulter and 17-year-old Winnipegger Nolan Patrick, a player projected as a possible top pick in the 2017 National
Hockey League Draft.

McGauley, the East Division’s player of the year in 2014–15, plays with New Jersey Devils first-rounder
Quenneville and Minnesota Wild sixth-rounder Reid Duke, giving Brandon a two-pronged attack.

Manitoba’s only WHL team doesn’t lack for local players. Six Brandonites are on the roster, along with one player from nearby Wawanesa and five other Manitobans.

Perry Bergson covers the Wheat Kings and the WHL for the Brandon Sun.

MEET THE BRANDON WHEAT KINGS:

Team Statistics
Head Coach: Kelly McCrimmon (14th season, 465-321-61)
Regular season record: 48-18-4-2 – 102 pts.
Regular season standing: 1st East Division / 2nd WHL
Playoff record: 16-5-0
Playoff finish: WHL Champions
BMO CHL Top 10 final ranking (March 23): No. 7
BMO CHL Top 10 best ranking: 1 (Pre-Season, Week 2)
BMO CHL Top 10 number of weeks ranked (26 weeks): 13
WHL ranking (GF): 1st (319)
WHL ranking (GA): 4th (197)
WHL ranking (powerplay): 4th (23.4%)
WHL ranking (penalty kill): 5th (81.4%)

Individual Highlights
WHL Award Winners: Ivan Provorov (Defenceman of the Year, Plus/Minus Award), Tanner Kaspick (Scholastic Player of the Year), Nolan Patrick (WHL Playoff MVP)
Eastern Conference First Team All-Stars: Ivan Provorov (D)
Eastern Conference Second Team All-Stars: Jayce Hawryluk (F), Nolan Patrick (F)
Season leader (points): Jayce Hawryluk, 47-59–106 (58 GP)
Season leader (goals): Jayce Hawryluk, 47 (58 GP)
Season leader (assists): Nolan Patrick, 61 (72 GP)
Season leader (points by defenceman): Ivan Provorov, 21-52–73, (62 GP)
Season leader (points by a rookie): Stelio Mattheos, 13-17–30, (50 GP)
Season leader (goalie): Jordan Papirny, 31-17-4-2, 2.61 GAA, .910 SV%, 6 SO (54 GP)

MasterCard Memorial Cup History
Appearances: 5th* (1979, ‘95, ‘96, ‘10, ‘16)
Last appearance: 2010
All-time record: 7 wins, 11 losses / 57 GF, 71 GA
Best result: Finalists in 1979 and 2010*

* – since introduction of round robin format in 1972
* – Introduction du format de tournoi à la ronde en 1972