Pats ready for real games to begin
Memorial Cup finalists rely on proven work ethic as regular season approaches
Dave Struch knows exactly where the Regina Pats stand heading into the regular season.
Although Regina’s head coach wasn’t particularly concerned about wins and losses during the exhibition schedule, it was still important to set the tone for how his team needs to play when the real games commence.
“We felt we had a very good exhibition season, whether it was through practice or through the games,” said Struch, whose club finished 3-3-0 in the pre-season. “We came a long ways as a group. We lost a lot of skill from past years, but our skill is going to be our character, our attitude, our work ethic, our leadership, our accountability. The guys have been committed to it. They’ve done a great job.”
The Pats’ lineup has undergone drastic changes since its last meaningful game — a 3-0 loss to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Acadie-bathurst Titan in the Memorial Cup final.
Gone are elite players like Sam Steel, Cameron Hebig, Josh Mahura and Libor Hajek. They’ll be replaced by a committee of seasoned veterans looking to step into larger roles and some younger players who are eager to find their legs at the WHL level.
The end result is a team that will have to embrace a somewhat different style.
“Where we’re going to run into trouble is when we try to do too much,” said Struch. “We have to keep the game simple, play straight-line hockey. We’re going to have to make the right decisions at the red-line and the blue-line and get pucks in. We don’t want to dump it in and give it away. We want to chip it in so that we have guys driving through with speed, so we can get puck possession and create offence that way.”
So far, so good.
“Those are things that most of our players are good at because they can skate,” said Struch. “They have speed, they work (hard), they have courage. Our individual skill level is going to come with experience. It’s going to come with making mistakes. It’s going to come with our skill development in practice. But we have to commit to playing a simple game and be patient with the other stuff, especially early in the season.”
The Pats’ lineup remains in flux as it prepares for Friday’s regular season opener against the host Prince Albert Raiders. Regina is still awaiting the return of four key players due to NHL camps: goalie Max Paddock (San Jose), rightwinger Nick Henry (Colorado), centre Jake Leschyshyn (Las Vegas) and defenceman Cale Fleury (Montreal).
“The message has been sent to the players that we worry about the team that is here at the rink right now,” said Struch. “That’s the team we’ll prepare for Game 1 against P.A. Anybody else that’s added along the way, they’ll become a part of it. We expect to see the (same) work ethic that these existing guys have put in to this point.”