Pats dumped by Rebels
The Regina Pats didn’t give Taz Burman much of a workout on Friday night.
The rookie goaltender made just 16 saves for his first WHL win as the Red Deer Rebels skated to a 4-1 decision before 5,004 fans at the Enmax Centrium.
Red Deer improved to 3-00. Regina dropped to 1-3-0.
“We didn’t get enough effort top to bottom,” said Pats head coach Malcolm Cameron, whose team was coming off an impressive 6-0 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday.
“The other night in Edmonton the goals were a product of doing the work, going to the hard areas. Tonight we were way too perimeter. You’re not going to beat a Red Deer Rebel hockey club playing that way.”
Red Deer’s Conner Bleackley opened the scoring 4:51 into the game. Regina’s Chandler Stephenson replied 1:20 later but Rhyse Dieno restored the Rebels’ onegoal lead with 6:26 left in the opening frame.
After a scoreless second period, the Rebels broke it open with goals by Grayson Pawlenchuk (5:34 into the final frame) and Matt Bellerive (10:25).
The Pats had just nine shots in the final two periods and were outshot 27-17 overall.
“We did enough to hang around but we had a 5-on-3 (power play) in the second almost for a full two minutes and we did nothing with it,” said Cameron. “It was a game we still had a chance to win had we got it to 2-2 heading into the third period. But we didn’t really generate a lot of chances.”
Goaltender Dawson MacAuley took the loss for Regina in his second consecutive start after an injury to Teagan Sacher. MacAuley was coming off a 34-save shutout in Wednesday’s win over Edmonton.
“These are the things we talked about as a coaching staff and with the players heading into today’s game, that we were worried about having an emotional letdown,” added the head coach. “We wanted to change from the previous year’s Pats team when we had success and got away from our game.
“We lost so many one-goal games last season where a point here or there might have given us a chance to have a decent year.
“Are we going to be a team of character this year where we start winning some of these one-goal games or are we going to revert to the old Regina Pats? We sure don’t want to do that.
“We have to find a way to gut out these games.”
EXTRAS: F Dexter Bricker made his Pats debut against his old team. He played 18 games with the Rebels in 2011-12 before spending last season with the SJHL’s Nipawin Hawks … 16-year-old prospect Nick Schneider served as the Pats’ backup for the second straight game due to Sacher’s injury (hip flexor) … The Pats are to conclude their Central Division swing tonight against the Kootenay Ice.