Hurricanes ready for clash with Wheat Kings to open playoffs

By Lethbridge Herald on March 27, 2025.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Brayden Yager works on a skill before shooting on Koen Cleaver on Wednesday during a skills session.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes are set to battle the Brandon Wheat Kings in the opening round of the WHL playoffs beginning tonight at home and it will take having strong efforts in certain areas of their game to win this best-of-seven series.

“Oh real good,” said Bill Peters, Canes head coach.

“Guys are excited about the opportunity we have in front of us. We’re happy that we earned the opportunity to start at home here on Friday night and we have to take advantage of that.”

The Canes will look to log some minutes in the offensive zone and force Brandon to defend.

“We gotta manage the puck properly and make sure we spend some time in the offensive zone,” said Peters.

Canes coaches have been harping on a few things that will hopefully lead to their success in the series.

“Speciality teams are  gonna play a factor,” said Peters.

“We’re very comfortable with our goaltending, they’ve got good goaltending …  So we gotta  make it hard on (Carson) Bjarnason for sure. And just basically puck management and getting to our game early and often and playing with speed.”

Lethbridge is facing a goalie in Bjarnason who had a .913 save percentage, 22-15-3-0 record in 40 regular season games and a 2.93 Goals Against Average.

“We’d like to be in his eyes,” said Peters.

“We’d like to be hard at the net and be in around the net and get some deflections and score on some rebounds.”

The Canes will have to be aware of players such as six-foot-five Roger McQueen among others.

“Roger’s a talented player (and) a very well-known commodity, ” said Peters.

“Unfortunately had an injury throughout the year but he’s been back and he’s starting to get his feet underneath him obviously.”

Captain Noah Chadwick said the main priority is just frustrating those guys.

“I think just constantly being in their grill and giving them little shots here and there and I think that kinda adds up and takes a toll physically and mentally on guys,” said Chadwick.

Peters said they’re deep down the middle.

“You look at their centre group and they’ve got some guys who can score and then you got (Marcus) Nguyen with 30 plus goals. So they’ve got some dangerous players.”

Chadwick sees the games as being tight checking.

“I think our fore check’s gonna be big and it’s kind of about investing in terms of contact and  making sure that they’re kind of worn down physically,” said Chadwick.

This will be Brayden Yager’s first postseason and he is excited to get it going.

“It’s the best time of the year and then kind of the last month, you’re kind of just aching to get to get to this point in time,” said Yager.

Yager talked about how he sees the Canes having success.

“It’s all about us,” said Yager.

“I think as players, obviously there’s certain players we have to be aware of but I think for us it’s all about us and controlling what we can control. And I think if we play the way we can, and  come out strong and if we’re hungry to win, we’re gonna win.”

The Canes took three of the four regular season meeting against Brandon.

Game 1 is tonight at VisitLethbridge.com Arena at 7 p.m., Game 2 is Saturday night in Lethbridge at 6 p.m before the series shifts to Virden, Man. for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday next week as Brandon’s Westoba Place is hosting the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

If necessary, Game 5 would be back in Lethbridge on April 4, Game 6 would be back in Virden on April 6 and Game 7 on April 8 in Lethbridge.