Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
It was a loud and packed house at SaskTel Centre as Connor Bedard and the Regina Pats rolled into Saskatoon to face the Blades for the first of two games in less than a week.
Although the shots may have been skewed, Regina walked away with a 4-2 win after being doubled up in the shots department 44-22.
“I had us for 26 scoring chances and I don’t know how many posts and it just wouldn’t go for us unfortunately,” Blades head coach Brennan Sonne said postgame.
It was a WHL franchise-record crowd for Saskatoon with an attendance of 14,768.
“I hate to say we’re getting used to it,” Pats head coach John Paddock said about the filled building.
“(It was a) hard-fought, closely contested game. Our goaltender was very good and our top players got goals at key times, obviously.”
Both teams came off Saturday night victories as the Blades beat the Brandon Wheat Kings while the Pats were able to take down the Moose Jaw Warriors and clinch a playoff berth in the process.
The opening period had both teams feeling each other out but the tempo was high as there are only two games left in the regular season for both teams.
That led to a scoreless opening frame, but there was plenty of eyes on No. 98 for the Pats.
Every time Bedard shot the puck or made a move, the more than 14,000 in the building were left in awe.
“Every game (Bedard’s) played in since the middle of November has been sold out on the road. (The attendance Sunday was) about 15,000; only Calgary was bigger. So it’s pretty neat to see for everybody — for Saskatoon — it’s neat to play in,” Paddock said.
The Pats opened the scoring in the second when Bedard made his presence felt, making a nice pass across the slot to Alexander Suzdalev for his 38th goal of the season.
Tanner Howe then beat two Blades and fired home his 34th of the campaign to make it a two-goal cushion for Regina.
It was Regina’s third game in the span of three nights and Howe and the rest of the team wanted to close the stretch out with a win.
“(We’re) pretty tired, obviously. But looking at the standings, we knew we wanted this win, so we came out flying and all around it was a good game,” Howe said.
While the Blades found themselves down two going into the third, it seemed they were in control of the game outshooting the Pats 24-11 through two.
Saskatoon wasn’t left without its chances either. Multiple times throughout the game, the Blades seemed to beat Pats goaltender Kelton Pyne but he either got enough of the puck to divert it away from the goal or the Blades couldn’t get enough of the puck to cross the goal line.
On top of that there were three pucks that ricocheted of the glass that fell right in front of the Regina net only to have Pyne react with just enough time to cover the puck.
And out of all those chances, it seemed the Blades couldn’t catch a break. On a delayed penalty just before the halfway mark of the third, Saskatoon had at least four chances to find the back of the net only to come up empty — a number of those chances hit the post.
But all of that hard work came to fruition on the following power play for Saskatoon as Brandon Lisowsky put the Blades on the board with a one-timer from the slot and his 34th goal of the season — marking a new career high.
Just minutes later, Regina restored its two-goal lead as Brayden Barnett cleaned up a rebound in front of the net going five-hole on Austin Elliott to make it 3-1 for the Pats.
And then Bedard gave what most paying fans came to see, the top-rated prospect firing home a one-timer with just over five minutes left in the game.
If you didn’t think there was a provincial rivalry between the two teams before, Bedard made sure you knew that there was.
The Pats captain dropped to one knee and pointed directly at the Blades’ bench after scoring his 70th of the season — the first WHLer to reach the milestone since Jayden Halbegwachs of the Moose Jaw Warriors did so in the 2017-18 season.
The Blades tried to make a comeback, as Lisowsky was able to cut the lead in half with just under two minutes left in the game with an extra attacker.
But it wasn’t enough as the Pats secured its second win in a row.
Pyne put on a stellar performance for Regina, making 42 saves and claiming first star of the night. Bedard picked up the second star after his two-point performance, while Lisowsky was the third star after his two-goal effort.
With only two games left in the regular season, as it sits right now, the two teams will meet in the first round of the WHL playoffs if they began right now.
“We’re really eager to get back into playoffs. The opponents, the opponent, we’ll prepare for them. But I guess it just adds a little extra juice when it’s Regina,” Sonne said about a potential first-round matchup.
“They’ve had a fantastic year, so I’m putting not much talk in to when by any means. And if it happens, we play them, I hope it’s just a good long series,” Paddock added about potentially seeing the Blades in the playoffs.
The teams won’t have to wait long before they get to see each other again though, as Saskatoon and Regina will meet up for the final time in the regular season on Friday night at SaskTel Centre.
