Keith Hershmiller
Eastern Division

Kieper gets first career shutout in 4-0 win over Raiders

Written by Kevin Shaw on

 

Matthew Kieper made 17 saves picking up his first career WHL shutout in a 4-0 Regina Pats win over the visiting Prince Albert Raiders. The announced crowd of 3,077 watched on as the Pats played one of their best defensive games of the year.

Tanner Howe with a pair of goals and Connor Bedard led the way with a four-point night (1G-3A) as the Pats moved to within a game of .500 on the season. Cole Carrier added an empty-net marker with 40.9 seconds left on the board to seal the deal. With the win, the Pats moved into an eighth-place tie with the Swift Current Broncos (33 points each). The Pats have four games at hand on the Broncos who lost 5-2 on Tuesday to the Rebels.

“Absolutely great for him and great for us,” Pats head coach and general manager John Paddock said of Kieper’s shutout. “You get a shutout you obviously made the saves when you have to or when you need to and he wasn’t tested too much in the first two periods and then I thought in the third with the goalie pulled for a while [he] made a couple [of] nice saves and a couple [of] other opportunities on the powerplay he was really solid, really good.”

“It feels amazing,” Kieper said of collecting his first-ever WHL shutout. “I don’t know what to say, to get one under my belt, it just means everything.”

First Period

A defensive struggle early in the game as neither team was able to find the back of the net and despite only 12 combined shots on goal, both netminders played well. Kieper and Tikhon Chaika each stopped six shots in the opening 20 minutes.

Second Period

The Pats were finally able to find a chink in the Raiders’ armor when Howe connected on a one-time pass from Bedard and fired home the powerplay marker. Howe’s 15th of the season at 16:31 of the second period wound up being the game-winning goal. Ryker Evans picked up an assist on the 1-0 goal.

Bedard made it a two-goal game with just under a minute left in the second when he received a nice pass from Cole Dubinsky. the 16-year-old phenom broke in alone and fired home his patented wrist shot glove side past Chaika. His 20th of the season gave the Pats a 2-0 lead at 19:02 heading into the second intermission.

The Pats took control of the second period on the scoreboard 2-0 and on the shot clock as they registered 13 shots to the Raiders two giving the Pats a 19-8 advantage heading into the second intermission.

Third Period

The Pats went up by three when Howe notched his second of the game as he banked a shot in off a Raider defender’s skate. Bedard added his second helper of the game on Howe’s 16th of the season giving the Pats a commanding 3-0 lead at 4:02 of the third frame.

With just over 4:30 left in the game, the Raiders pulled Chaika for the extra attacker and the Raiders carried much of the play, very similar to a powerplay for almost four minutes before the Pats sealed the contest.

Cole Carrier scores on the empty Prince Albert Raiders net – January 25th, 2022 (Keith Hershmiller)

The Pats got control of the puck and Carrier and Bedard broke in on a two-on-one toward the Raider empty net. Carrier made no mistake and with 40.9 seconds left gave the Pats a 4-0 lead. Bedard picked up another assist to complete a four-point outing.

The Raiders came close a couple of times late but the Pats held their ground and kept the goose egg on the board.

The Raiders outshot the Pats 9-6 in the third, but the Pats held a 25-17 advantage when the clock hit zero.

Helmet sticker that the Regina Pats will wear to honor one of their legends, Clark Gillies. (Keith Hershmiller)

“This certainly isn’t perfection, at any time ever, but I thought we got really solid performances from everybody,” Paddock said of the Pats performance on the night. “I thought the Michels, Armstrong, Linklater line really had some good shifts right throughout the game. So when you’re getting that kind of possession time and play at their end, you’re clearly getting good performances all around.”

“With the four minutes left,” Kieper said of finishing strong and keeping the shutout. “I wasn’t really thinking too much about the shutout, I was just thinking about protecting the three-goal lead we had at the time because really in the end the two points are what matters. The shutout is nice, but in the end, that was a really big win for us and I’m just happy that we got the two points.”

When asked if it felt like the game had a playoff feel to it and if he expected to see a similar game on Friday, Paddock had this to say: “Well I think it will be the same kind of game. We have to play like we would always say, the same way, the right way. Give P.A. lots of credit. Despite the shots advantage that we had till later in the game when they closed it, I’m not sure that it felt like we were automatically going to win. I think it was just what you said, a playoff-style game.”

“Those are good [situations] to play in,” Paddock continued. “Especially when you win them. You go back when you’re in a situation on the road next week or 10 days and it’s 2-1 for us late in the third, you go back to the things that were successful in this kind of game where we had a little bit of a lead.”

Patterings… The Pats are wearing a helmet sticker to honor team legend Clark Gillies who recently passed away… Tye Spencer made his Regina Pats debut, he is the 1,238th skater (non-goalie) to play in a regular-season or playoff game in franchise history dating back to 1917… Kieper’s 17 save shutout earned him first-star honors… Howe’s two goals earned him the second-star… Bedard helped sweep the three stars with his four-point night… Chaika stopped 21 shots in the loss… The Raiders return to the Brandt Centre on Friday, January 28.