Patrick hat trick lifts Wheat Kings

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This article was published 28/04/2016 (2912 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — Nolan Patrick led the Brandon Wheat Kings back to the Western Hockey League final Friday night.

The 17-year-old winger from Winnipeg scored his second career hat trick and added two assists as the Wheat Kings beat the Red Deer Rebels 5-2 at Westman Place and won the Eastern Conference crown for the second year in a row.

The Wheat Kings beat the Rebels, who will host the Memorial Cup next month, 4-1 in the best-of-seven conference final. The final begins at Westman Place Friday against the Seattle Thunderbirds after the Western Conference champs eliminated the Kelowna Rockets 4-0.

“It’s obviously nice to get those numbers ,but my linemates are unbelievable,” Patrick said. “Jayce (Hawryluk) made a great play on my second goal and John (Quenneville) made a great pass on my third goal so I pretty much put it into an empty net.”

Quenneville and Kale Clague also scored for Brandon. Patrick’s linemates Hawryluk and Tyler each had two assists.

Red Deer received goals from Jake DeBrusk and Evan Polei.

Brandon head coach and general manager Kelly McCrimmon said he was happy for his team, which lost in 2014-15 league final to the Rockets.

“Our goal right from when we lost out last year was to get back,” McCrimmon said. “Hopefully we’ll be successful this time around.”

Brandon dominated the early going — seven minutes in the shots were 9-3 for the Wheat Kings — but Red Deer forward DeBrusk opened the scoring with a nice deflection of a shot from the point by defenceman Colton Bobyk after he held the puck in the zone. It was the fourth game in a row the Rebels opened the scoring, with the goal coming seven minutes, 16 seconds in.

The Wheat Kings tied the game three minutes later when Patrick fired a shot by Rebels goalie Rylan Toth on a play created by linemate Hawryluk when he intercepted a Red Deer clearing attempt.

Patrick appeared to score again two minutes later when a dump-in from just outside the blue line bounced by Toth, but the Wheat Kings were correctly ruled to be off-side.

The Rebels regained the lead just after a power play had ended when confusion on a Wheat Kings’ line change led to a three-on-one, with Evan Polei rolling a rebound up over Brandon starter Jordan Papirny’s shoulder 14:23 into the opening frame.

Patrick scored his second early in the middle frame when he tipped in a lovely pass by Hawryluk during a two-on-two, and put his team ahead with his hat trick goal when he roofed the puck over a sprawling Toth on a nice pass by Quenneville.

It was the second hat trick of his career; the first came against the Saskatoon Blades in February.

Three minutes later, Patrick returned the favour when he created a turnover while killing a penalty, skated it up the ice and passed to Quenneville, who rifled a bullet over the shoulder of Toth to put his team up 4-2 with 47 seconds left in the middle frame.

“Obviously it’s no secret what kind of player he is,” Quenneville said. “The night he had tonight was incredible. He took the game over all by himself. ”

Kale Clague iced the game in the third when he pinched on a four-on-four, took a pass from Patrick, hesitated and then fired the puck by Toth.

— Brandon Sun