Pats scramble for players as even more injuries hit
Team is going short-handed during long road swing through American division
The Regina Pats are running out of players and running out of gas.
That’s not good news for a team that hopes to finish strong on its longest road trip of the season (in terms of distance) — a five-game tour of the WHL’S U.S. Division.
The Pats have struggled to patch together their lineup due to an untimely rash of injuries, including forward Drew Englot and defenders Makai Mitchell and Kyle Walker.
Captain Austin Pratt joined them on Tuesday, suffering an undisclosed injury against the Portland Winterhawks. His status is day-to-day as the Pats (13-23-32) get ready to conclude their road swing with games Friday against the Seattle Thunderbirds (17-202-1) and Saturday versus the Spokane Chiefs (22-14-4-1).
That’ll end the toughest stretch of Regina’s schedule — 13 games in just 23 days since the Christmas break. It’s a difficult challenge under the best of circumstances, let alone having to go through it with a short-handed squad.
“We’ve got guys out who should be regulars in our lineup — key guys,” said head coach Dave Struch. “The numbers are thin so we have to get our rest over the next couple of days and come out with a hard effort against Seattle.”
Before hitting the road, Regina had already lost forward Carter Massier to a season-ending shoulder injury. The team is also without two forwards acquired at last week’s trade deadline — Jakob Brook and Cole Carrier — due to pre-existing injuries.
That left the Pats in a tough spot when other players started going down early in the trip. Mitchell (face), Englot (appendicitis), Walker (knee), Carrier (shoulder) and Brook (knee) are all expected to be out for extended periods.
If Pratt can’t dress Friday night, Regina will again be down to 10 forwards — two short of a full lineup.
The team hopes to fill one of those holes by calling up Josh Paulhus from the Humboldt Broncos. The 17-year-old forward, who was one of Regina’s final pre-season cuts, has four goals and six assists in 31 games as an SJHL rookie.
The Pats are also thin on the back end, where 15-year-old prospect Layton Feist is serving as their sixth D-man. The team’s first-round pick (17th overall) in the 2019 bantam draft made his WHL debut in Tuesday’s 9-4 loss to Portland.
“He played really well,” Struch said.
“He was good with the puck, very good defensively, played a smart game. It was exciting for him and it was exciting for us to watch him do as well as he did against a team that was probably the best we’ve seen this year.”
Regina opened its trip Saturday with a 5-4 loss to the Tri-city Americans, who nearly blew a 5-1 lead in the game’s final eight minutes.
Less than 24 hours later, the Pats mustered one of their biggest upsets of the season with a 6-3 decision over the Everett Silvertips.
“We had a rough start against Tri-city,” Struch explained. “We played two really good periods after that and got ourselves back into it.
“The game in Everett was probably our best game of the year against a really, really good team.”
The win was marred by an ugly line brawl with 30 seconds left. Mitchell suffered broken facial bones at the hands of Silvertips forward Dawson Butt, who received a 12-game suspension — the longest handed out by the WHL since 2014.
“It’s very unfortunate that it happened,” Struch said. “The league has dealt with it accordingly. There’s no place for that in hockey anymore.”
Two nights later, the Pats were feeling the effects of a short bench. They allowed a season-high nine goals against the league-leading Winterhawks.
“Our numbers caught up to us,” Struch said.
“We had a real rough one playing against what I would say is the most skilled team in the league — probably the most depth of skill I’ve seen in the last five or six years. And they’re not even building for this year. They’re building for next year.”