THE WEDNESDAY THRILLER … WITH PHIL ANDREWS

The Regina Pats clinched a playoff spot on Sunday and are all but locked into the second spot in the East Division after a 6-2 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors. The Pats played their 7th game in 10 nights on Sunday going an incredible 4-1-1-1 in that stretch picking up 10 of 14 possible points. Swift Current lost to Saskatoon Sunday 2-1 and so the Pats are 12 points clear with 9 games left. The magic number to clinch home ice in the first round is 7 points. 3 wins plus a point or three Swift Current losses and an extra time loss.

In Sundays 6-2 win over Moose Jaw the Pats scored a goal in almost every possible way. Pavel Padakin started it off with a penalty shot goal, Rykr Cole, Braden Christoffer and Pavel Padakin scored even strength. Jesse Gabrielle scored on the powerplay and Adam brooks scored a short handed goal into an empty net. That does not happen very often. The only type that didn’t happen was on a delayed penalty but that’s kind of like splitting hairs.

How about the season Colby Williams is having. He leads all Pats defenceman with 32 points in 56 games and is tied for third in the league in plus/minus at plus 44. If he doesn’t get a pro camp invite next year I will be really surprised.

It didn’t take Adam Brooks long to get back on top of the Pats scoring lead. He scored his 26th of the year on Sunday and is up to 54 points. He has smashed his previous career high of 12 points that came as a rookie tow seasons ago.

Sam Steel picked up two more assists on Sunday and is now two points back of Brandon Wheat Kings 17-year-old Ivan Provorov for the leagues rookie scoring lead. He is second in assists with 37 and 4th in goals with 16. In my opinion it’s between Steel and Brandon’s Nolan Patrick for who will be the East nominee for rookie of the year. Patrick leads all rookies with 26 goals and is 4 points back of Steel but has been injured the last 6 games. Out West Kailer Yamamoto is a leading candidate in my mind with a 49 point season so far and maybe Tyler Benson of the Vancouver Giants who has 41 points in 52 games.

Speaking of WHL awards, unlike previous years it’s hard to peg who has been the player of the year this season. Last year it was a forgone conclusion that Sam Reinhart would win, the year before Adam Lowry of the Siwft Current Broncos was the favorite. There are 5 or 6 guys who could conceivably win in 2015. Trevor Cox and Cole Sanford of the Medicine Hat Tigers, Oliver Bjorkstrand in Portland, Nick Merkley in Kelowna and Tim McGauley in Brandon are all deserving candidates. Will be interesting to see how the voting goes, I  am undecided for where my vote will land. And it’s even more muddled when it comes to the goaltender of the year.

Back to the Pats, Jake Leschyshyn will join the team today for the remainder of the season. He has played three games with the Pats this season and scored his first goal on February 6th against the Saskatoon Blades. Adam Berg and the Calgary Mustangs made the playoffs in the AJHL so he is a ways away from joining the club. The Mustangs will play the second place Brooks Bandits in the first round.

Forward Austin Wagner is progressing nicely, he’s feeling good and the team is following protocol right now with his upper body injury. He should be back sometime next week if everything goes well.

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The Regina Pat Canadians kick off their post season tonight at 8 PM at the Cooperators Centre in Regina against the Yorkton RawTec Maulers in the two versus seven, best of 5 series. The Pat C’s finished 2nd in the standings, one point back of Tisdale after the best season in their history going 34-8-2 for 70 points. Not to mention a trip to the final at the Macs Midget Tournament in Calgary where they lost in double overtime. The Pat C’s have listed Pats prospect Riley Woods on their roster as well as Owen Sillinger and Arthur Miller who both attended training camp before this season. The Maulers have Carson Welke who was the Pats 7th round pick in 2014. His brother McKenzie was in Regina for training camp as well but was injured and has since been listed by the Saskatoon Blades.

I chatted with Canadians Assistant Coach and former Regina Pat Mike Sillinger on Tuesday about their series and asked him about his thoughts on getting the post season started. “Everyone is looking forward to getting going and playing some games. Our guys have had 10 days off, we didn’t schedule any games in the lats week of the season and the guys are fresh and rested. They are sick and tired of competing against each other and looking forward to the game tonight.”

The Pat C’s finished the season with 208 goals for which was tied with the Battlefords for the most goals during the regular season. They gave up the least amount of goals at 98 and finished a plus 110 in goals for and against. What’s most impressive about the scoring is how spread out it is for the team. Mike’s son Owen leads the club with 64 points, Riley Woods is next with 59 and Arthur Miller with 54. After that there are 2 guys over 40, 2 over 30 and 3 players with 20 plus points. Goaltending has been great as well, rookie Curtis Meger has a minuscule 1.91 GAA and a .934 save percentage in 23 games. He went 16 and 5. Clark Flegel went 18 and 5 with a 2.23 GAA and a .920 save percentage in 23 games. Sillinger says the team is deep. “Our stats are fantastic but it’s not about the stats, it’s about the team. Our guys know that there is a tough road ahead of them. We had half our group in the playoffs last year and we almost knocked off Notre Dame. So hopefully those guys can lead the team this year and they know that just because we are playing a 7th place team, doesn’t mean we are going to have a cake walk to the league finals. The one thing you will see in this playoffs is that any team can beat anyone and it’s going to be a grind for all teams.”

Sillinger had this to say about the match up. “They have great goaltending so we are really going to have to be relentless on the fore-check. The more that we play with the puck the more that we wear their defence out. They stole a game against us this year with their goaltending, I think we had 40 plus shots but couldn’t score. Again we want to play a puck possession game, hard on the fore-check and make their D pay the price.”

Game 1 is tonight in Regina at 8, game 2 is Thursday in Yorkton at 8. 3 is back in Regina on Sunday at 3PM. If necessary Game 4 is in Yorkton Monday and Game 5 Wednesday in Regina.

The other series will see 1st place Tisdale play 8th place Moose Jaw. 3rd place Notre Dame take on Pats prospect Erik Gardiner and the 6th seed Prince Albert. The 4-5 match-up has the Battlefords Stars pitted against the Saskatoon Contacts.

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Slap Shots

– I thought TSN did a great job filling 8 hours of trade deadline coverage on Monday with not a whole lot going on. The best part of the day was Chris Stewart finding out on live television that he was traded from Buffalo to the Minnesota Wild. Overall however a very lackluster deadline day, all the big deals where already done. Would have been nice to see the Leafs get Dion Phaneuf a new home but that will likely come in the off-season.

– No one got better and made the jump into the top of the league on deadline day in my opinion. The good teams are still the good teams. Buffalo however is down to the bare bones. Barring a lottery win by another team the Sabres will get Connor McDavid in the 2015 draft.

– Pretty cool to see Jordan Leopold’s daughter get her wish in a letter she sent to the Columbus Blue Jackets asking the team to trade her dad to the Minnesota Wild. The best story of the day for sure.

– I think it’s pretty cool that the Arizona Coyotes hosted a Rider night at their game last night against the Anaheim Ducks. I understand a lot of people made their way down to Phoenix to take in the festivities and I get that a lot of Canadians spend their winters down there. However I would be surprised if lifelong Flames, Oilers, Canucks, Leafs, Senators and Habs fans or fans of any other team will be adopting the Coyotes as their new favorite as a result. The team isn’t good, it’s not the most stable team in the league and it’s so far away. They are never on TV and other than Shane Doan (who is getting long in the tooth) they don’t have a recognizable star. Bit of a stretch for me to believe the Coyotes will become Saskatchewan’s team. If it works then good on them but looking at the Coyotes website yesterday they had posted nothing about the Rider night going on at the rink. Promotional schedule didn’t include it nor their press releases or features. Don’t get me wrong I think it’s awesome fans got to leave the cold and go to Arizona. But I would venture that 90 percent of them are there because they are Rider fans, not to become Coyotes fans.

– How cool was it that the Toronto Blue Jays were on TV yesterday afternoon from Dunedin taking on the Detroit Tigers in pre-season play. Baseball season is right around the corner, I can’t wait! Not getting my hopes up for the blue birds this year but you never know.

– Tonight’s episode of Pats TV on Access 7 features a good sit down with goaltender Daniel Wapple. Starts at 6:30 PM.

That’s it from me today, have a great week!

Phil
@PhilTheThrill18