Pats’ man of Steel too strong for Oil Kings
Sam Steel was simply too much to handle for the Edmonton Oil Kings at Rogers Place on Sunday.
The Sherwood Park product carried out his best Superman impression, registering a hat trick and adding an assist for the Regina Pats in a convincing 7-4 win over the Oil Kings.
It was Steel’s first hat trick of the season and third time registering at least four points in a game this year.
“The details in his game are unbelievable,” said Oil Kings captain Colton Kehler. “He’s a guy you’d like to learn from. Playing out there, he’s pretty special, he’s so aware and so smart. But he hurt us (Sunday), so it’s not as enjoyable watching him when it’s like that.”
A first-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in 2016 (30th overall) Steel is single-handily trying to secure a playoff spot for Regina, who are hosting the Memorial Cup this season.
He has 28 goals and 76 points in just 49 games after winning the WHL scoring race last year with 50 goals and 131 points in 66 games.
“I thought we had a solid start and did a lot of good things,” Steel said.
Nick Henry, Jake Leschyshyn with a pair, and Cale Fleury scored for the Pats, who pulled three points ahead of the Brandon Wheat Kings for third place in the East Division and are 11 points clear of the Saskatoon Blades, who are chasing the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Tomas Soustal, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Kobe Mohr and Matthew Robertson scored for the Oil Kings, who battled back in the contest, scoring three third-period goals.
“I’ll give our guys a ton of credit for the last two months of building our penalty kill back after such a rough start,” said Oil Kings head coach Steve Hamilton. “We have consistently been over 80 per cent over the last couple of months, when we were in the low 60s earlier in the year. It was becoming an area of strength and it became unravelled tonight.
“It’s tough to know what we had five-on-five, because we never gave ourselves any chance to get traction.”
Regina scored five power-play goals on five opportunities in the contest. They build a 6-1 lead through two periods before the Oil Kings mounted a small comeback in the third period.
Steel picked up an assist on the opening goal of the game at 11:15 of the first period on a two-man advantage. His shot was tipped by Henry past Oil Kings goaltender Josh Dechaine, who finished with 36 saves.
Jake Leschyshyn scored on the following power play, banging in a rebound from in close to put the Pats up 2-0.
Steel scored a short-handed goal with 11.7 seconds left in the period, wiring a one-time shot past Dechaine on a set up from Cameron Hebig, to make it 3-0.
“I think our power play was just a matter of execution,” Steel said.
Tomas Soustal pulled one back for the Oil Kings 2:24 into the second period, slipping the puck through goaltender Max Paddock on a short-handed breakaway.
Steel quickly put to rest any notion of a comeback, scoring his second of the game 50 seconds later, going bar down on a shot from the high slot.
Leschyshyn added his second at 4:36 of the period, converting a centring feed from Hebig in tight. Cale Fleury scored another powerplay marker at 8:51 of the period to put the Pats up 6-1.
“Special teams hurt us early,” Kehler said.
Fix-Wolansky scored nine seconds into the third period on a power play, snapping the puck pasts Paddock to cut the lead to 6-2. But Steel netted his hat trick goal just over six minutes later.
Mohr and Robertson rounded out the scoring for the Oil Kings, who begin a three-game road trip on Tuesday against Saskatoon.