Candice Ward
Central Division, Game Recap

Hitmen dump Pats in overtime

Written by Kevin Shaw on

 

Try as they might, the Regina Pats could not put away the Calgary Hitmen on Sunday and it cost them a 4-3 overtime loss. 6,181 Saddledome fans watched on as the Hitmen matched the Pats goal-for-goal until the overtime period where they came out on top with Blake Stevenson scoring his 19th of the season sealing the win for the Hitmen.

“Three games in three nights. I thought our guys had gave us a really really gutsy performance today,” Pats assistant coach Ken Schneider said following the overtime loss. “[We] probably should have deserved better, but that’s that’s how it’s gone so far for us this season.”

The Pats were down multiple regulars and playing a defenseman at forward and playing a lot of the club’s youth.

“Yeah, I mean, it is a learning process,” Schneider told Pats play-by-play voice Dante De Caria. “We’ve really seen a lot of growth. And I know I’ve said this before, the listeners probably know ‘what’s he talking about?’”

Layton Feist opened the scoring just past the midway point of the first period when he ripped home a spin-o-rama pass from Connor Bedard. Feist’s fifth of the season at 10:49 put the Pats up 1-0. Raiden Zacharias, playing in his third career game, picked up a helper on the goal for his first career DUB point.

A pretty even opening 20 minutes between the two clubs and the Pats entered the first intermission with a 1-0 lead and trailing 10-8 on the shot clock.

Grayden Siepmann hit Maxim Muranov with a nice stretch pass and Mironov took the puck to the top of the left circle where he wired home a shot past Kelton Pyne to tie the game at 6:21 of the middle period. Muranov’s fifth of the season got the game even a 1-1.

Despite the Hitmen tying the game up, the Pats got their legs and outshot Calgary 11-7 in the second.

Easton Armstrong scored his fourth of the season with a nicely placed shot past an outstretched Brayden Peters’ glove at 5:07. Bedard set Armstrong up with a nice pass as the Pats entered the Hitmen zone. Tanner Howe picked up the second assist on the 2-1 goal.

just over two minutes later Riley Fiddler-Schultz made it 2-2 when he grabbed the loose puck off a faceoff to the right of Pyne and he somehow snuck the puck through the Pats netminder. Fiddler-Schultz’s 24th of the season came at 7:13.

Cole Carrier gave the Pats a 3-2 lead when he put home a cross-ice pass from Jakob Brook while the Pats were on an odd-man rush. Peters got a piece of the shot but the puck managed to just sneak past the Hitmen goalie at 10:26 of the third.

Less than two minutes later the Pats got caught in their own zone and Fiddler-Schultz made them pay as he deposited his second of the game (25th) as he snapped the puck past Pyne to tie the game at 3-3 with 7:59 left.

Neither team was able to capitalize in the last part of the period and Calgary had a late powerplay that Regina was able to kill off.

The Hitmen took over the shots with a 14-9 period and 31-28 through 60 minutes.

As the WHL Twitter person usually says… Off to WHOA-vertime…

The Hitmen broke in on a partial 3-on-1 where Pyne stopped the original Fiddler-Schultz shot and the rebound went to Blake Stevenson who finished off the game with his 19th of the season at 2:05 of the extra frame.

“But you know,” Schneider said. “Of course [this] weekend, we’re playing some people who just don’t get the minutes they get and we’re really seeing some growth in our young people. And I firmly believe that you know, there’s better days ahead for us. There’s no question. You know, we need a little help, especially, especially when you give a goal up you have to really come back hard and then when you score that’s the key to success is the next shift has to be a strong shift that we’ve got some trouble were given up a couple of week goals to maybe, you know, that’s kind of how it went down.”

The Pats went 0-for-1 on the powerplay while killing all three Hitmen powerplays.

“Yeah, exactly in a big game,” Schneider said of the Pats penalty kill. “We really worked hard. We talked a lot in our video sessions about how we want to defend it and we’re trying to get there [and] are showing some progress and we’ve got some positivity on it earlier in the road trip as well. So I think it’s coming. It’s starting to come and we’re starting to make some progress.”

Pyne stopped 30 of 34 shots in the loss, while his counterpart Peters stopped 28 of 31 picking up the win.

Patterings: Zacharias picked up his first career WHL point with an assist on the Pats’ first goal…Bedard extended his point streak to 12 games where he has 26 points (13G-13A)…Howe picked up an assist increasing his point streak to nine games where he has 12 points (4G-8A)…Three stars were Fiddler-Schultz, Bedard, and Stevenson… the Pats’ next action is Wednesday, March 2 at Brandon.