HITMEN FACE HUGE TEST
Pats imposing playoff foe
Nobody around the Western Hockey League is expecting the Calgary Hitmen to beat the Regina Pats.
On paper, the Pats are the overwhelming favourites heading into the opening round of the WHL playoffs. It’s as simple as that.
The Pats ended the season as the CHL’s No. 1-ranked team. The Hitmen sneaked into the playoffs in the WHL Eastern Conference’s final wild-card position.
The Pats scored more goals than any other team in the WHL this year. The Hitmen scored the least of any team to make the playoffs. On paper, it’s a mismatch. But, as always, the game isn’t played on paper, and while Hitmen coach Mark French wasn’t about to downplay the challenge ahead after the Hitmen wrapped up their regular season last weekend, he also wasn’t about to roll over and concede the series just because his team is the underdog.
“We’ve got to play a really good team and we’ve got to bring our A-game,” French said. “But I think there is some confidence that we’ve played them fairly tough and it’s all about Game 1.”
In four head-to-head games this year, the Pats (52-12-8) came away with three victories and outscored the Hitmen 1913.
It wasn’t an entirely lopsided season series, though, as one of the meetings between the teams saw the Pats win a 6-5 overtime thriller on Jan. 27 and then saw the Hitmen win the final matchup 6-3 on March 4.
If the Hitmen are looking for reasons to believe they can beat the Pats, that final meeting offers a template for how to do it.
In that game, the Hitmen got scoring from six different players.
Of course, Adam Brooks also potted two goals. The Hitmen will need to limit the damage that Brooks and teammate Sam Steel can do. The two forwards finished atop the WHL scoring race this season, with Steel picking up 131 points and Brooks ending the season right behind him with 130.
They’re not the Pats’ only weapons, though, as both Dawson Leedahl (89 points) and Connor Hobbs (85 points) also finished the season in the top-20 in WHL scoring
The Hitmen’s top point producer was Matteo Gennaro, whose 80 points saw him finish with the 25th highest total.
That probably means that the Hitmen will find better success trying to limit the Pats’ opportunities than they will trying to match their firepower, but that’s easier said than done.
Fortunately, the Hitmen are entering the playoffs as a battle tested unit and have managed to come up big in high pressure situations recently.
The Calgarians won five of their final six games to qualify for the post-season.
The series gets underway Friday and Saturday in Regina for Games 1 and 2 before shifting back to Calgary for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday at the Saddledome, with both games starting at 7 p.m.