The Brandon Wheat Kings and Lethbridge Hurricanes are on a collision course to open the 2025 WHL Playoffs presented by Nutrien.
The Wheat Kings (38-23-4-3, 83 points) locked in the fifth seed with a 4-0 victory over the Regina Pats on Saturday night, while the Hurricanes (42-21-3-2, 89 points) were already etched into the fourth seed heading into the final weekend of the 2024-25 WHL Regular Season.
The Hurricanes owned the regular season series with the Wheat Kings, going 3-0-0-1. Brandon’s lone victory came via the shootout – a 4-3 triumph on February 28. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes held the Wheat Kings to one goal or less on two occasions, including a 3-1 win on March 7 and a 3-0 victory on November 11.
The Wheat Kings wrapped up their regular season schedule with back-to-back wins over the Regina Pats on Friday and Saturday.
For the Hurricanes, they doubled up the Edmonton Oil Kings by a 4-2 margin on Friday night, before suffering defeat at the hands of the Medicine Hat Tigers, albeit with a young line up as a number of veterans were rested, including Miguel Marques, Logan Wormald, Brayden Yager, and Jackson Unger.
Yager – a prospect of the Winnipeg Jets – leads the Hurricanes in scoring, finishing the campaign with 82 points (25G-57A) in 54 games. This marks the third consecutive season with 75 or more points for the 20-year-old Yager. This will also go into the books as his fourth season with at least 25 goals. Yager’s 57 assists fall just three short of the career high he established in 2023-24, when he collected 60 helpers as a member of the Moose Jaw Warriors.
On the other side of the puck, it’s veteran forward Nolan Flamand atop the scoring charts for the Wheat Kings with a career-high 68 points (23G-45A) in 67 games. The 21-year-old product of Saskatoon has been a driving force for the Wheat Kings all year, in this his final WHL season.
The Wheat Kings and Hurricanes last met in post-season action in the second round of the 2018 WHL Playoffs. It was the Hurricanes skating to a 4-1 series victory before bowing out to the eventual WHL Champion Swift Current Broncos in the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship.
Prior to 2018, the Wheat Kings and Hurricanes met in the first round of the 2008 WHL Playoffs. That season, the Hurricanes bounced the Wheat Kings in six games, eventually advancing all the way to the WHL Championship Series, before falling to the Spokane Chiefs.
The best-of-seven first-round series between the Wheat Kings and Hurricanes will get underway at the VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Friday, March 28 (7 p.m. MT).
| Game | Visitor | Home | Day | Date | Time | |
| 1 | Brandon | @ | Lethbridge | Friday | March 28 | 7:00 p.m. MST |
| 2 | Brandon | @ | Lethbridge | Saturday | March 29 | 6:00 p.m. MST |
| 3 | Lethbridge | @ | Brandon (Virden) | Tuesday | April 1 | 7:00 p.m. CST |
| 4 | Lethbridge | @ | Brandon (Virden) | Wednesday | April 2 | 7:00 p.m. CST |
| 5* | Brandon | @ | Lethbridge | Friday | April 4 | 7:00 p.m. MST |
| 6* | Lethbridge | @ | Brandon (Virden) | Sunday | April 6 | 4:00 p.m. CST |
| 7* | Brandon | @ | Lethbridge | Tuesday | April 8 | 7:00 p.m. MST |
*- If necessary
