John Paddock reminded his Regina Pats that they don’t have the WHL championship on lock, delivering a message to his league-leading charges over the weekend.
The Pats head coach was displeased by a spate of undisciplined penalties and sloppy defensive zone coverage — “dumb penalties by 19-year-old players,” as he told the Regina Leader-Post — during a home loss against the Tri-City Americans. Both left wing Filip Ahl (Ottawa) and defenceman Connor Hobbs (Washington) were healthy-scratched for a home game against the Prince Albert Raiders. Each returned Sunday when Regina delivered a reasonable facsimile of a perfect road game against P.A. with a 5-1 victory. Naturally, Hobbs scored twice.
Regina, which is paced by Sam Steel (Anaheim) and Adam Brooks (Toronto) being 1-2 in the WHL points race, is first overall with a .793 point percentage and averages 5.32 goals in regulation time (the next most potent WHL team, the Medicine Hat Tigers, averages 4.70). Eventually, though, every offensively stacked team eventually has to commit to falling in love with winning games 3-1 instead of 7-4. The change doesn’t always happen overnight.
While all that was unfolding, the Pats lost starting goalie Tyler Brown to injury. The easy way out for Paddock after the Everett loss might have been to use the loss of Brown — which forced Junior A call-up Kurtis Chapman into action — as cover for the collapse. Instead, the veteran coach took a hard line.
Patrick back in Brandon
Better late than never: presumptive NHL first-overall choice Nolan Patrick is back after missing half the WHL season with an upper-body injury. The 18-year-old helped the Brandon Wheat Kings decisively sweep a two-game set with the rebuilding Kootenay Ice, getting four points in his calendar-year debut.
Patrick had sports hernia surgery in the summer and played only six games before being injured in October. The layoff likely shouldn’t affect his draft stock. That only factors in when NHL amateur scouts have limited viewings of a player. That is far from the case with Patrick, who logged his 200th game with Brandon (counting the 2016 MasterCard Memorial Cup and pre-season) on Saturday.
In 2012, the year of the infamous “injury draft,” both Alex Galchenyuk and Morgan Rielly each missed virtually the entire season after needing knee surgery before being taken No. 3 and 5 overall by Montreal and Toronto, respectively. Each now has a considerably higher NHL ceiling than 2012 first-overall pick Nail Yakupov. Just saying.
Record win streak for Attack
In a sense, OHL Western Conference teams with MasterCard Memorial Cup ambitions should relish, rather than perish, the thought of facing Michael McNiven and the Owen Sound Attack in the playoffs.
Owen Sound, which demurred to move McNiven at the trade deadline, is on a franchise-record 13-win streak. It will end at some point, of course, but a team with a strong 19-year-old goaltender and a well-fortified defence corps with the likes of overage Santino Centorame and 17-year-old Markus Phillips will be a tough out in the playoffs. McNiven has not allowed more than three goals in a start since the first week of December.
Whoever outlasts Owen Sound in the playoffs — assuming that happens — will be stronger for it, and if they aren’t, then they weren’t championship-calibre in the first place.
The Attack’s next two games are against the basement-occupying Barrie Colts. The streak could still be alive when they host the London Knights on Jan. 28.
Olympiques’ Bellemare with rarest of goalie goals
Well, it was Friday the 13th: the Gatineau Olympiques’ Mathieu Bellemare became the first QMJHL goaltender credited with a goal that was not into an empty net.
During the second period, the 18-year-old Bellemare cleared the puck during a penalty kill. His Rimouski Océanic counterpart Jimmy Lemay — coincidentally, a former bantam teammate — left his crease and tried to put the puck behind his net to start a breakout. Instead, Lemay’s pass went right into the Océanic net.
“Maybe I’ll thank him, but not tonight,” Bellemare told Le Droit newspaper in French.
Bellemare became the second ‘Piques puck-stopper in a little more than two seasons with a rare goalie-goal feat. In 2014-15, François Brassard scored twice in a season — once apiece for the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles and once for Gatineau.
Canadian NHL team prospect of the week: Ethan Bear, D, Seattle Thunderbirds (WHL)
Bear, a fifth-round choice of the Edmonton Oilers two summers ago, has found a rhythm and helped Seattle fashion a five-win streak. The pride of Ochapowace, Sask., has six points over his last three games, including the primary assist on the overtime winner during a road win against U.S. Division-leading Everett last Saturday.
New name to know: Michael Farren, RW, Saskatoon Blades (WHL)
The 16-year-old rookie had his first back-to-back two-point games, helping the Blades have a 2-0 week that kept them up in contact with the playoff pack in the WHL’s Eastern Conference.
Farren, of Surrey, B.C., was unclaimed in the bantam draft two seasons ago, which might not be surprising given his 5-foot-10, 162-pound stature. However, he made the Blades this fall by virtue of his persistence and vision reading the ice, and is Saskatoon’s top rookie scorer with 19 points across 36 games.
