Regina Pats reflect on disappointing season

The Regina Pats cleared out their lockers on Sunday as their WHL season came to an end.

Regina finished the year with a 22-40-4-2 record, meaning the Pats didn’t qualify for the playoffs.

“I think there was a lot of ebbs and flows. It’s a season where no one could be happy with. We’re disappointed in terms of how the last 20 or so games went,” said Al Millar, who is in his first season as the Pats’ general manager.

“I could sit here and talk about injuries and suspensions and five to seven regular players out of the lineup. I don’t want to paint a brush at all with any excuses. Teams have injuries and teams miss players. Other guys need to step up.”

Millar said the team had a good start to the season but it was “a bit of a mirage” since the Pats weren’t missing any players at NHL training camps.

“At the end of the day, reality hit us in the face and we are what we are,” Millar said. “While the season is disappointing and you want to remain as competitive as possible, I’m not sure at the end of the day the way the season went wasn’t totally unexpected, especially when you look at the decisions we made around the deadline and how we feel we need to move forward.

“We don’t want this to be long-term pain and if we don’t do the things we started to do at the deadline, it’s going to be a long haul to get back to competitiveness.”

The Pats’ season came to an end Saturday with an 11-1 loss to the Moose Jaw Warriors that turned into a physical affair.

That loss put an end to the first year of Tanner Howe as the team’s captain – and now his future remains up in the air. The 18-year-old Prince Albert product is a highly ranked prospect for the upcoming NHL draft.

“I thought I played pretty good throughout the season,” said Howe, who finished the campaign with 28 goals and 49 assists. “A goal of mine was to be consistent throughout the whole season with my work ethic and being competitive each night and you want to produce points-wise.

“It was tough at the start being a younger captain. I thought I had to make a couple adjustments. As the year went on, I got better at it and got better at talking in the room. It’s tough when you’re not winning a lot. It’s hard to keep the atmosphere good in the room and stuff like that but it was a good first season.”

While the goal will ultimately be to stick in the NHL, he is excited to return to the Pats if that is the case.

“I’m really looking forward to it. We have a lot of returning guys next year so we’re going to be a different team,” Howe said. “We’re going to come in with a good mentality and I want to win next year.”

One player who won’t be back is defenceman Ty Gibson, who finished his final season of WHL eligibility. He played most of his time with the Everett Silvertips before he was traded to the Pats in December.

“I think it’s been a good run. It’s been a lot of life goals and just maturing on and off the ice,” Gibson said. “I had some nice mentors over the years and this season it was just trying to pass it on to the younger guys.

“I told those young guys every day, ‘I remember my first game, I remember getting signed and I remembered getting drafted. It definitely flies by and don’t take any days for granted, that’s for sure.’ ”

Millar said their attention as a team now turns to the draft and what the future will look like.

“I’m not saying there are decisions that need to be made – there certainly could be — but there are things we need to look at,” Millar said. “It’s all about one thing: It’s all about getting better. It’s all about getting to the next step, which was to be competitive.

“Then there’s a whole other level to be a contending team at this level. We’re not really close. When you look at the best teams in the league right now, we have some work to do.”