Regina Pats Head Coach Dave Struch and his coaching staff had the troops ready for battle on opening night. It showed, the team came out and dominated Moose Jaw early in the season opener at home. They were able to take a two nothing lead after the first period.
Photo – Keith Hershmiller
After a 3-2 win captain Austin Pratt said “A full month of working hard and training the right way, eating the right way, full team practices. I think, you know, that’s a big benefit”
Without any players gone to NHL camps the team was able to work together and really get started on the right foot.
Pratt commented “We had a full month together as lines. You start clicking early and it showed.”
Struch was complimentary of the effort in saying “The win is fantastic. The last month of work that we put in to it, the daily routine has paid off, 5-on-5 we were really good tonight. So we are really really happy” Dave continued with “We talked about winning this game right from day one. That was our goal and we achieved it tonight.”
Photo – Keith Hershmiller
Ty Kolle was asked what was clicking with his line in the game, he responded with “We’ve been working hard in practice for the past month. When we were put together we just said, you know this weekend we want to go hard and just try and get a good win for the team. All the small details that we worked on for the past month are coming into play now.”
The rest of the game wasn’t as dominating for the Pats but Struch said “The team was focused and even when you look into the second and third when it was 5-on-5 we got the puck in, and we did things right and we got some more opportunities, we got some momentum back and a lot of it has to do with the last month of work these guys have put in.” “Our focus was on being ready for this first game and getting the win.”
The focus then turned to the next night. Coach Struch commented after the first game “You can’t win two on the weekend if you don’t win tonight, so we gotta be ready for tomorrow night. Hopefully we come out with the same start we had”
The Pats did come out with a good start in back half of the home and home with the Warriors. The first few shifts of the game were in Moose Jaw’s end. Unfortunately the momentum was halted by penalties. Moose Jaw returned the favour and led two nothing after the first period.
After the 5-3 loss in Game 2 of the season goaltending coach Rob Muntain stated “These first two games we saw a lot of good things, definitely saw some areas of concern, we’ll work on those things over the next week to get ready for PA on Friday night.”
Pats Stats
16-year-old rookie Sloan Stanick scored his first career goal on Saturday night. He was able to jump on a loose puck from a Garrett Wright attempted wrap around, and bury it.
The Pats penalty kill was 9-for-12 over the weekend.
Regina out shot Moose Jaw 76-to-48 in the two games.
Face off wins were 74 to 57 in favour of the Warriors.
The Pats are at home against Prince Albert on Friday and Winnipeg on Sunday.
