The Brandon Wheat Kings now trail the Kelowna Rockets 3-0 in the WHL championship series, after losing another tough matchup.
The Rockets seem to just be too good at scoring goals in timely fashion, according to Rob Henderson of the Brandon Sun.
On Monday, they turned to three of their top forwards to get the job done. After being put together part way through Game 2, Rourke Chartier (two goals, one assist), Leon Draisaitl (one goal, two assists) and Nick Merkley (three assists) were together from the opening faceoff on Monday and combined for nine points. Their contributions were timely as well, with Draisaitl opening the scoring with a short-handed goal — Kelowna’s second on back-to-back Brandon power plays going back to Game 2 — while Chartier potted the winner and a key insurance goal with Brandon pushing in the third.
Florida Panthers prospect Jayce Hawryluk had another tough night, with no points and a -3 rating, with 2 PIM. His whole team has been having trouble against the Rockets, though, so his struggles aren’t much different than that of everyone else on the club.
With the team on its back, players like Hawryluk will need to step up if they don’t want their season to come to sudden ending in Kelowna.