Keith Hershmiller
Eastern Division

Pats keep playoff hopes alive with 3-2 win over Blades

Written by Kevin Shaw on

 

Every game for the Regina Pats down the stretch drive is now a must-win game and they did just that in a 3-2 win over the visiting Saskatoon Blades before 3,713 fans at the Brandt Centre keeping their playoff hopes alive.

The Pats took a 3-0 lead early in the third period before the Blades got things going, scoring twice in the latter half of the period to make a game of it, but the Pats hung on to the 3-2 win. The win was the first against the Blades in 2021-22 and the season series ended up 5-1-0-0 for the Blades.

“Managing the puck, shot blocks, being hard to play against in our d-zone: those are all things that we’ve been hammering home in the last month,” Pats assistant coach Brad Herauf said after the game. “That’s playoff hockey mentality. We’re not the biggest team in the world, but we can compete. Blocking shots doesn’t take size or strength, it just takes willingness and we had more guys willing to do it tonight.”

Borya Valis scored his first goal in 13 games to give the Pats a 1-0 lead at 12:45 of the first period. Cole Dubinsky and Logan Nijhoff led a 3-on-2 into the Blades zone and Valis finished off a nice passing play with a tip-in past Nolan Maier for his ninth of the season.

The Blades outshot the Pats 10-9 through 20 minutes.

It took him 23 games, but Logan Linklater was finally able to light the lamp in a Pats uniform. His first of the season (second career) gave the Pats a 2-0 lead at 6:26 of the second period. Tanner Howe won a race to the puck in the Blades zone, he sent a pass to Connor Bedard who fired a pass to Linklater who made no mistake chipping the puck past an outstretched Maier.

The Pats took a majority of the play in the middle frame and it showed on the shot clock as they outshot the Blades 11-3 and had a 20-13 advantage through forty minutes.

The Pats added to the lead early in the third period with a powerplay goal.

Ryker Evans received a pass at the point, moved in close to the top of the circle, and let a wrist shot fly that beat Maier high on the glove side. Dubinsky and Nijhoff had the assists on Evans’ 14th goal of the season at the 1:31 mark of the third.

Kyle Crnkovic got the puck along the side-boards in the Pat zone, outmaneuvered the defending Pats, and tucked his 36th through Drew Sim to get the Blades on the board at 11:26 with an unassisted marker.

The Blades pulled Maier with just under three minutes left.

With the Pats defending their one-goal lead, they were doing everything they could by blocking shot after shot… until one got through.

In his first game as Blades Captain, Tristen Robins got his shot past a diving Pat defender and it deflected off Egor Sidorov and past Sim. Sidorov’s 19th of the season with 2:06 left made it 3-2 Pats.

That was as close as it got for the Blades as the Pats held on for the 3-2 win.

The game had some testy moments but the fireworks finally erupted with 2.8 seconds left with lots of pushing and shoving and Evans and Sidorov squared off with some fisticuffs.

The Pats did everything they could to preserve the win by blocking shots and doing everything possible to get to the finish line.

Saskatoon outshot the Pats 10-9 in the third period.

“That’s everything,” Linklater said of the Pats’ defensive effort late in the game. “You know, that’s what we’re looking for right now. We need to fight and we need to grind and make playoffs and when you have guys step up like that, and even if you just look at our bench and how alive we were and how much energy we had. I mean, that’s everything, right? Those are the moments in hockey where [they] will win or lose you games.”

“Obviously that was a big win,” Herauf said. “[Especially] with what’s happened here in the last few games. I think the bigger thing for our group is just to be rewarded for their effort. I think that we’ve had a [really] great effort [in] a lot of these games here lately, [but] we just haven’t had the result. And tonight to see what they did in the third period — I think that we talked about growing and how to win and these guys learning how to win — I think that was a big thing…I think that’s one of the things that we’ve been missing down the stretch here, is those extra shot blocks [and] those body self-sacrifices. That’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about learning to win and that was tonight. That’s exactly what it took to win. And a lot of times it’s not easy to do that. When you’re sharing with your teammates after you don’t think about it until you get the ice bag on and tonight, it was nice to see old guys [and] young guys all stepping up and being a part of that.”

Sim stopped 21 of 23 shots directed his way to pick up his sixth win of the season. Nolan Maier stopped 26 of 29 shots to take the loss and remain at 118 wins (still two shy of the DUB record).

Final shots: 29-23 for the Pats.

The Pats went 1-for-2 on the powerplay and the Blades went 0 for 2.

Nijhoff and Dubinsky each had a pair of helpers in the win.

Patterings: The three stars were: Linklater, Bedard, and Evans…Nijhoff went 23-3 (88.46%) in the faceoff circle for the Pats…The Pats’ next action is Friday, April 1st when they play host to the Winnipeg ICE as they try to keep their playoff hopes alive against the Eastern Conference leaders.