Central Division

Oil Kings stave off Pats comeback with 6-3 win

Written by Kevin Shaw on

 

Despite a valiant effort, the Regina Pats comeback came up short in a 6-3 loss to the hometown Edmonton Oil Kings. Edmonton scored the first three goals to give the Oil Kings a 3-0 lead. The Pats made a game of it and actually got the game back to even at 3-3 before the Oil Kings scored three unanswered to take the game 6-3.

Shea Van Olm’s fifth of the season gave the Oil Kings an early 1-0 lead 2:47 into the first period. Kaiden Gule broke into the Pats’ zone let a wrist shot go that appeared to be going wide and it deflected off Van Olm and by Drew Sim.

Despite dominating the Pats 18-7 on the shot clock, the Oil Kings were just up 1-0 through 20 minutes.

Penalty troubles early in the second period were costly for the Pats as the Oil Kings scored a pair of powerplay goals less than a minute apart early in the second period.

Josh Williams was able to connect on a 5-on-3 at 1:17 when he corralled a rebound and fired the puck past Sim to give the Oil Kings a 2-0 lead with his 26th of the season.

Carter Souch gave the Oil Kings a 3-0 lead 48 seconds later when he connected on the 5-on-4 powerplay with a perfectly placed one-timer past Sim.

Stanislav Svozil got the Pats on the board when he scored his sixth of the season on the powerplay past Sebastian Cossa. As he was falling to the ice, he was able to connect with a one-timer on a pass from Connor Bedard at 9:02 to make it 3-1.

Heading into the third period the Oil Kings were up 3-1 and dominating the shot clock at 37-13 through forty minutes (19-6 in the second).

A hardworking shift by Matteo Michels led to the Pats’ second of the game. After being denied by Cossa, Michels grabbed the puck and fed it out front for Zane Rowan who made no mistake and buried his third of the season at 5:36 to pull the Pats to within one at 3-2.

The pesky Pats would not go away. A third-period shift with a trio of 16-year-olds drew the Pats even when Tanner Howe scored his 20th of the season. Michels got the original shot on goal and Howe was able to deposit the 3-3 goal at 9:10.

Dylan Guenther showed why he was an NHL first-rounder when he somehow got past the Pats’ defense and as he was being checked was still able to tuck the puck by Sim to give the Oil Kings the lead. His 33rd of the season scored at 10:54 made it 4-3 for the hometown crew.

The Pats got in trouble trying to get control of the puck to try and get Sim pulled for the extra attacker. The Oil Kings would not give the Pats anything and Williams (27th) converted a one-time pass from Jakub Demek at 1:03 to seal the game for the Oil Kings at 5-3.

Souch poured some salt into the Pats’ wounds when he scored his second of the game (17th) with 33.7 seconds to make it 6-3 for the CHL’s top-ranked Oil Kings.

The Oil Kings outshot the Pats 49-24 in the game.

Cossa stopped 21 of 24 Pats shots to pick up his 25th win of the season. Despite allowing six goals, Sim had his best performance of the season stopping 43 of the 49 shots.

Patterings: Raiden Zacharias became the 1,239th skater to play in a regular-season or playoff game for the Pats in franchise history… The three stars of the game were Williams (2G), Guenther (1G-1A), and Michels (2A)… The Pats’ next game action is tomorrow (Saturday) night when they travel to Red Deer to play the Rebels.