The Swift Current Broncos played one of their better even strength games of the season in an exciting battle with the Brandon Wheat Kings.

The problem was that Brandon struck three times on seven power plays to take the lead and pulled away on a couple late miscues for a 5-2 victory.

"We had a really good effort out of everybody," said Broncos assistant coach Scott Dutertre. "We had everybody buy in. There was a lot of physical play. Some of our guys that have struggled on the physical side really stepped up and played well. In spite of the score we had a couple guys that it was maybe their best game of the season so far."



It was a back-and-forth game that saw the Broncos really put some physical pressure on the Wheat Kings in their own end. There are things they can build on despite the result.

"It was a tough one towards the end but I thought we played hard tonight," said Broncos forward Andrew Fyten. "Like we've always said we're process driven and tonight we did the right things... we played them hard. We matched them in shots even though we played a lot of the game shorthanded. We can just keep moving our game forward."



Swift Current only got two opportunities on the power play tonight and their man advantage only saw the ice five times in their three games this week.

Brandon opened the scoring on an early power play when Linden McCorrister deflected a Stellio Mattheos shot from just above the crease.

Swift Current's answer caused an early intermission as they sent four players on a counter-attack and Matthew Culling set up Joona Kiviniemi for the Teddy Bear Toss goal. Kiviniemi ripped it from the right of the slot back over the blocker of Jiri Patera for his 5th of the season and first goal in nine games.

"That line did a great job tonight," Dutertre noted. "I thought Kiviniemi at times played more physical than he's used to playing which was a good thing for us."

The stuffed animals, toques and gloves will go to the local Salvation Army to distribute.



Brandon took the lead back on another power play late in the second period when Mattheos beat Joel Hofer from the left circle with a hard shot for his 22nd of the season.

Fyten tied the game back up off some hard work by his line with Tanner Nagel and Ethan Regnier. Fyten caught Patera off guard with a bad angle shot off a quick release for his 6th of the season.

"That full line has been our anchor," Dutertre said. "They've been doing a great job of steering the ship and they lead the way for us every night."

The Wheat Kings thought they had taken a lead early in the third period on another power play when Mattheos bumped Hofer down before McCorrister slid a puck under him. Unlike last night's 3-1 goal in Lethbridge, this one was called back for incidental contact.

Brandon's power play got another chance midway through the period and Luka Burzan set up McCorrister for a nice play off the rush and a 3-2 lead.


45 seconds later the usually sure handed Hofer lost control of a puck behind his net and Ridly Greg made it 4-2. McCorrister added another one on a backhand under Hofer for his hat trick goal 52 seconds after the Greg goal.

Brandon only outshot the Broncos 35-33 despite the 7-2 edge in power play opportunities.

It was a good week for the Wheat Kings who beat Swift Current twice and Regina once by a combined score of 15-4. Swift Current dropped all three of their games, but liked their efforts in the last two.

Alec Zawatsky was back in the lineup after missing the third period last night with a lower body injury.

The Broncos will host the league's best team from Prince Albert on Tuesday night.