RECAP: Pats hand Blades 4-2 loss
REGINA – Three second period goals, plus an empty-netter lifted the Regina Pats to a 4-2 victory on Tuesday night, as the Regiment earned their first win of the season over the Saskatoon Blades inside the Subway WHL Hub.
The win snapped a six-game losing streak for the Pats against the Blades and was Regina’s first win over Saskatoon inside the Brandt Centre since a 4-3 overtime victory on January 26, 2020.
“Obviously against them it’s big, because they have had our number,” acknowledged Pats head coach Dave Struch. “For me it’s not so much them having our number, but the way we’ve played against them hasn’t been very good.”
Tuesday night was the second straight game Regina found the win column after a rugged 4-3 win over the Prince Albert Raiders Sunday night.
“I look at these last six periods and the way that we’ve played and how we’ve won the games, I think that becomes the best part of this win tonight, no matter who it was against,” explained Struch.
“We did some things that we’ve seen flashes of in this shortened season, but we built on last game and we did so many right things right to get this win…doing things that we haven’t done consistently, we’ve done (them) consistently for six periods now.”
Saskatoon opened the scoring Tuesday just 38 seconds into the middle frame, as former Pat Caiden Dailey made it 1-0 Saskatoon. That goal, however, would be the Blades lone lead of the night.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Colin O’Brian Man’s Shoppe Three Stars
Shortie from Chorney helped spark the win!#JoinTheRegiment #SubwayWHLHub pic.twitter.com/uZWzVAeVbl
— Regina Pats (@WHLPats) April 21, 2021
A short-handed goal from Carter Chorney 4:11 into the second evened the score, before Layton Feist scored a beauty on a wicked wrister over the blocker of Blades goalie Nolan Maier just over four minutes later to make it 2-1 Pats.
Brandon Lisowsky evened the score later in the frame for Saskatoon, but the tie was short lived, as Carson Denomie capped off the five-goal frame with his WHL-leading 13th of the season.
An empty-netter from Kyle Walker – his first of the season – late in the third sealed the deal in a game Roddy Ross stopped 20 shots to earn his fifth win. Ryker Evans also extended his WHL-best defencemen point streak to 10 games with a pair of assists.
“You play the same team so many times in the bubble. I mean, I feel there’s a rivalry with every game now,” said Walker. “It was great to get the win on Saskatoon. They’re a really good team, but we just played super hard tonight and we did the right things in the right areas.”
Up next for the Pats is a Thursday night matchup (8 p.m.) with the Swift Current Broncos, as the Regiment looks for their first three-game winning streak of the season.
