A Picasso it was not.
A game rife with breakdowns and bizarre puck bounces ended up going against the Wheat Kings as they lost 7-3 to the Regina Pats despite goals by Matteo Michels, Nolan Flamand, and Caleb Hadland. Dylan McFadyen made 31 saves in his first WHL start.
“Right from the start we were on our heels,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “We played the game at half the speed they did. They wanted it more. To me, it looked like from the start of the game we were just going through the motions.”
Strange bounces in the Regina zone nearly gave the Wheat Kings the lead, but instead strange bounces in Wheat King territory gave the lead to the Pats. With the puck being juggled in mid-air Caden Brown finally knocked it home off the shaft of his stick.
The answer for the Wheat Kings came from their veterans. Luke Shipley found the puck in the slot, and as the Pats came to challenge him, he threw it across to Michels, who one-timed home his 13th.
From there, however, the Pats had the better of the Wheat Kings on the scoresheet for the rest of the first. Another bouncing puck in the crease found the tape of Zach Pantelakis, and he fired it home. Then, Braxton Whitehead forced a turnover in the slot and simply snapped the puck on net to stretch the lead to 3-1.
A shorthanded goal got the Wheat Kings some life in the second. Hadland slipped loose as he broke in up the left wing and fed it into the slot for Flamand to get the Wheat Kings within one.
Before the period was out, the Pats had restored their two-goal lead. Tye Spencer redirected a point shot home from the high slot, just managing to leak it through a heavy screen.
Early in the third, the Pats stretched their lead again as Brown was left alone in front and finished off a nifty forehand move. But the Wheat Kings fought back, with Hadland going end-to-end and ripping home his 13th.
After that, however, it was all Regina. Aleksey Chickin drifted one through traffic to make it 6-3, and Zach Lansard knocked home a rolling rebound to put the game fully out of reach.
The Wheat Kings can’t dwell on the loss. They get right back to work tomorrow in Moose Jaw as they face the Warriors at 7:00.
