Regina Pats' head coach Brad Herauf knows Hockey Canada will have a hard decision to make for who to pick for the Olympics because of how well Connor Bedard is playing in his third year with the Chicago Blackhawks.
"To me, to see what he's doing right now, to put the pressure on Hockey Canada, proving a lot of people wrong about his game," Herauf said on the SportsCage. "He'll do anything to be great, and I'm not surprised at all."
This season with the Blackhawks, Bedard has played 30 games, scoring 19 goals and recording 23 assists with a plus-eight rating.
When Bedard was with the Regina Pats from 2020 to 2023, Herauf was the team's assistant coach. He was the WHL's first exceptional status player, meaning he entered the league as a 15-year-old. His exceptional season was in 2020 as he played 15 games for the Pats, scoring 12 goals and recording 16 assists.
"Really, he's still 20 years old. He should be in the Western Hockey League right now," Herauf joked. "He's still evolving, then they want to talk about his game, how he needs to get better. Well, he does, he's 20 years old and look at what he's doing right now. He is in his third year in his league. We saw so many things that were like, 'Wow.'"
Switching to current season for the Pats, Herauf made sure to recognize goalie Matthew Hutchison's efforts in their 4-0 win against the Saskatoon Blades on Sunday, which was the first shutout of his WHL career with 32 saves.
"It's always fun to be around those moments," Herauf noted. "The boys usually celebrate pretty well when stuff like that happens."
When reflecting on the game, Herauf explains what adjustments they made against the Blades.
"We were without our two top scorers in the game, sometimes when you get rosters like that, your team goes into survival mode and really had everyone follow the game plan," Herauf explained. "Sometimes when we get shorthanded like that, it's funny how your team can react."
The Pats were without Caden Brown and Keets Fawcett due to injuries against the Blades, who both lead the team in scoring with 18 goals. That win against Saskatoon snapped a seven-game losing streak, six of those games were down south.
"We were 0-6, but we really felt that the first two games of the U.S. road trip, we lost 2-1, we ran into hot goaltending, even on good days. Everett, Portland, Seattle, they're real tough places to play," Herauf recalled.
"The only game we really disappointed ourselves in was probably the Wenatchee [Wild] game [6-1], the last game of the road trip. We never want to lose, but when you go back and look at the reasons you lost and go through the video, it usually tells you if you're going down the right path or if you're way off and you gotta change a lot of things."
With Christmas approaching, Herauf shares what he hopes for the team going forward.
"I think getting healthy is a big thing. We've talked about earlier, having a little bit of a lighter schedule these last 16 days. I think it's finishing off on a winning note. We easily could have won the Brandon game. We played 47 minutes and then had three minutes of bounces that two of them wouldn't even happen," Herauf said.
"For us, it's to continue to believe in ourselves — don't listen to the outside noise. We have to stay focused on what we are in the dressing room and I think we've taken some really big strides in being a team."
In the game against the Wheat Kings, the Pats led 3-2 heading into the third period. Regina could not hold the lead, were outscored 5-1, and lost the game 7-4.
The next game for the Pats will be against the Kelowna Rockets on Saturday for their annual Teddy Bear Toss. Dante De Caria will have the pre-game show at 5:30 p.m. and puck drop will happen at 6 p.m.
