It took overtime to do it, but Tim Konsorada helped the Brandon Wheat Kings limp home from a rough Alberta road trip with something to celebrate Sunday.
The Wheat Kings' captain fired a wrist shot over top of Hitmen netminder Justin Pogge's glove hand with only 3.8 seconds remaining in overtime to give Brandon a 3-2 victory over Calgary to snap a three-game WHL losing skid.
"This is a huge win for us," Konsorada told the Calgary Sun. "We've been in a slump and it feels good to get out of it. But now we have to get ready for Calgary again on Wednesday."
It was the first of three straight meetings in three different cities over six nights for the Wheat Kings and Hitmen, who will clash again Wednesday at Winnipeg's MTS Centre (7 p.m.) and Friday at Brandon's Keystone Centre (7:30 p.m.).
After being blown out in Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Red Deer by a combined score of 18-4 on their first three games of the trip, Wheat Kings head coach/general manager Kelly McCrimmon was pleased to see his club rally on Sunday in Calgary in front of a Saddledome crowd of 10,348.
"It was good to salvage a win out of the trip," said McCrimmon, in a telephone interview before the team boarded the bus to make the long 12-hour trek back to Brandon. "I think that we worked our way out of our slump ... It was important for two reasons: One, we needed to get our team turned around. And secondly, the fact that we are playing Calgary this week three times makes it an important win. There are still areas we can be better, but I think the trip is going to be important for our team in terms of making us a better team, even though it didn't go well."
Konsorada scored twice for the Wheat Kings, who improved to 7-1-5 in 13 overtime games this season and 25-18-5-1 overall this season. Rookie defenceman Daryl Boyle had the other goal for the Wheat Kings, the first of his WHL career.
With injuries to Brandon blueliners Jonathan Webb (strained neck), Mark Louis (bruised foot) and Riley Day (lacerated kidney), the Wheat Kings had only two veteran defencemen in the lineup in Steven Later and Stephane Lenoski, with versatile Corey Courchene moved back from forward once again. Despite the lack of experience on the back end, the Wheat Kings managed to limit the Hitmen to just 20 shots through regulation, out-shooting Calgary 32-25 overall as Brandon netminder Mike Nichol put in a solid performance.
"I thought Calgary had more chances to win (in overtime) than we did and Mike made some real good saves at that time to give us a chance to still win," said McCrimmon. "Courchene played defence and I thought played real well and of course we were missing Jon Webb and Mark Louis, which is a pretty good piece of our back end. So I thought the guys played well back there to keep Calgary to 20 shots."
Brandon native Ryan White and first-round bantam draft pick Keegan Dansereau - both 16-year-old rookie forwards - replied with a goal and an assist apiece for the Hitmen, who slipped to 26-17-6-3 after playing without the likes of Canadian junior team veteran Ryan Getzlaf, who has a concussion.
"It's tough playing without our captain and other key guys on the roster," White told the Calgary Sun. "It seems every night, more guys are going down.
"But it's great for us young guys. Me and (Keegan) Dansereau are getting tons of ice time, so I can't complain."
ICINGS: Wheat King LW/C Tyler Strautman was feeling the effects of the flu and sat out ... The Hitmen were also missing ex-Wheat King D Tyler Harder (eye, day-to-day), D Brett Carson (concussion, day-to-day), D Darryl Yacboski (shoulder, one week) and LW Roman Tomanek (season-ending shoulder injury) ... Sunday's game featured a battle of brothers, with Brandon D Theran Yeo facing Calgary D Dylan Yeo.