Hurricanes confident ahead of Virden playoff games

By Lethbridge Herald on March 31, 2025.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Lethbridge Hurricanes Logan McCutcheon and Matteo Michels of the Brandon Wheat Kings battle towards the puck during WHL playoff action at VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Saturday night.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes take a 2-0 first-round series lead over the Brandon Wheat Kings into Virden, Man., for Games 3 and 4 today and tomorrow respectively and are feeling confident heading out on the road after winning both games on home ice to start the series. 

“You play 68 games to secure home ice, then you gotta take advantage of it and we did that this weekend,” said Bill Peters, Canes head coach after Saturday’s 4-3 win in Game 2.

Peters thought the Canes were better in the first game compared to the second game.

“They had a desperation level,” said Peters.

“When you’re down one, you wanna try and get the split on the road. So they’re probably a little bit more desperate than us to start the game and then once we got our intensity elevated then I thought we were fine.”

Brayden Yager has seen the Canes get better in the first two games.

“We’ve cleaned up some of the scrum stuff, like I said, but I thought especially (in) the second half of that game (Game 2) we were really good and like I said we can build off that going into their barn,” said Yager.

The series shifts to the unfamiliar neutral site of Virden’s 1,200-seat Tundra Oil and Gas Place.

“We’ve got a real good record in neutral site games, we’re undefeated there, so try and keep that intact,” said Peters.

Sticking to their structure is what forward Kooper Gizowski thinks will be key on the road.

“We’re a good team and we gotta lot of skill but we also got a lot of grit, ” said Gizowski.  

“Yeah, they hit but I don’t know if they wanna play a full 60 minutes of the hockey we play. So I think if we just go in there and play our hardest, and kinda lay some hits early and play hard on their defence, I think they’ll turn over pucks and we’ll get our chances from it.”  

The Canes had tape to watch ahead of Games 3 and 4.

“There’s a few areas of our game that we wanna address,” said Peters.

The Wheat Kings and Canes have gotten into a fair amount scrums in the first two games with a few penalties coming of them.

“ We just gotta find that line of protecting our goalie (and) not taking any penalties or kind of getting sucked into what they’re trying to do,” said Yager.

Games 3 and 4 are tonight and tomorrow night respectively in Virden at 6 p.m. MST.