The Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings reassigned fifteen players Sunday night following their annual Intrasquad Game at Westman Communications Group Place.

As a result of Sunday night’s moves, the Wheat Kings have trimmed their pre-season roster 29 players - three goalkeepers, eight defencemen and 18 forwards. Of those, nine will be leaving for National Hockey League training camps this coming week (Jordan Papirny, Colton Waltz and Rihards Bukarts – Edmonton Oilers, Reid Duke – Minnesota Wild, Tim McGauley – Washington Capitals, Jayce Hawryluk – Flordia Panthers and Macoy Erkamps – St. Louis Blues). Russian defenceman Ivan Provorov and center John Quenneville meanwhile will be heading off to Philadelphia and New Jersey’s camps respectively. Both former first round draft picks did not attend Wheat Kings’ Camp this week as Provorov is in the process of clearing up a visa issue while Quenneville was busy attending a National Hockey League Players Association event.

Among the players still in camp are three 15-year old prospects – forwards Caiden Daley and Rylan Bettens of Winnipeg as well as Medora defenceman Garrett Sambrook, who were chosen in the first, third and sixth rounds of the 2015 WHL Bantam Draft.

In Sunday’s Intrasquad game, 17-year old center Nolan Patrick scored 30 seconds into overtime as Team White edged Team Black by a score of 4-3.

Veterans Jayce Hawryluk and Reid Duke and rookie Jeremy Klessens also scored for the Whites, who trailed 3-2 after forty minutes after jumping out to a 2-1 first period advantage.

Austrian Dario Winkler scored once and set up another in a losing cause for the Blacks, who got singles from rookies James McIsaac and Connor Gutenberg.

Following is the list of players on the Wheat Kings’ pre-season roster:

Goal: (3)
Jordan Papirny, Logan Thompson and Josh Dechaine

Defence: (8)
Kale Clague, Colton Waltz, Mark Matsuba, Mark Taraschuk, Ivan Provorov, Macoy Erkamps, Dane Hirst and Garrett Sambrook

Forwards: (18)
Jayce Hawryluk, Quintin Lisoway, Duncan Campbell, Tanner Kaspick, Tim McGauley, Rihards Bukharts, Nolan Patrick, Braylon Shmyr, Tyler Coulter, Ty Lewis, Stelio Mattheos, Reid Duke, Linden McCorister, Dario Winkler, Rylan Bettens, Caiden Daley, John Quenneville and Connor Gutenberg.

Players reassigned by the WHL club Sunday night included goalkeeper Hunter Arps (16), defencemen Sean Comrie (15), Hoon Kim (15), Riley Cusack (15), Ty Ettinger (15), Zach Wytinck (16) and Ben Hilhorst (16) as well as forwards Marcus Sekundiak (15), John Patmore (16), Jeremy Klessens (16), Brady Castellano (17), Cole Reinhardt (15), Rylan Hoffman (15), Brad Goethals (17) and James McIsaac (16).

The Wheat Kings will kick off their 4-game pre-season schedule this Friday night at Westman Place against the visiting Regina Pats. Tickets to both of Brandon’s pre-seaspm games as well as the club’s 2015 Home Opener on September 25th against Swift Current will go on sale this Tuesday, September 8th at 10am at the Keystone Centre box office.


photo courtesy www.wheatkings.com