Coming into this season, the Pats hadn’t started a season 1-7 since 2010-11. That year though, they didn’t ever lose seven in-a-row. There was some optimism coming into this season. Last year only produced 19 wins, but most of the team was returning, and the hope was that most of the players would be able to contribute more, being a year older. The season started well with an opening night win at home against the rival Moose Jaw Warriors. Since then, inconsistency has cost the team. They have been tied or had the lead in four of the seven games, but they have only scored three, third-period goals while giving up 11.
Head coach Dave Struch has liked parts of the team’s game, saying, “with the exception of the game on Saturday night (in Prince Albert), I felt that we came out real strong in all the games. We’re going through a real hard time here, but we have a real good room, good leadership, and we have to keep it positive.”
This season can be used for teaching moments. The WHL is a developmental league and the players are young, especially on the back end this season.
“We can’t go in there and beat them up. We can be positive, give them constructive criticism for sure. Show them things that we can correct as individuals. We really like our team game systems. Then, show them what it looks like when they do the right things. For tonight (vs. Edmonton), it’s really good because we can show the first 30 minutes of the way we played. There’s a lot of real good things, and that’s something that would be good for us to show. How to do those right things and the results are shown on the board, three-nothing.”
(Photo – Allen Douglas)
On Wednesday, general manager John Paddock made a trade to bring in an experienced defenceman. 20-year-old Zach Wytinck was acquired from the Brandon Wheat Kings. The downfall to the trade is that the Pats will have to move one of the experienced 20-year-old forwards — whether by trade or by releasing them — before the deadline on Thursday.
The team is back at it on Saturday and Sunday when they host Vancouver and Lethbridge respectively. Next, they will enjoy a few days off before heading to Lethbridge on Friday the 18th and the next night in Red Deer. They will then have a full week off to prepare for the Prairie Classic on October 27th against the Calgary Hitmen. There will be a lot of time to work on cleaning up the issues.
One of those issues will be the power play. It is operating at a league worst 8.3 percent, having only scored twice on 24 chances.
Another, the penalty kill, has given up the most goals against at 11. Despite that, they are 16th in efficiency as they have been shorthanded the second most at 41 times.
