REGINA — It was almost a month ago to the day that the Regina Pats suddenly saw their Western Hockey League season take a dramatic and positive change.
The club found themselves well back of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, with success having come sporadically in their previous games since the Christmas break.
Then, all of a sudden, they just started winning.
Seven straight games with at least a point, and not only did the Pats move into a playoff spot, they pulled away from the Red Deer Rebels and Moose Jaw Warriors to jump into seventh place with a five-point lead.
Now, with five games remaining in the regular season, that means Regina is only a couple wins away from landing their first playoff berth since the Connor Bedard-led Pats lost in seven games to Saskatoon in the 2022-23 postseason's first round.
Pats head coach Brad Herauf joined Barney Shynkaruk on The SportsCage on Friday afternoon to talk about the late-season surge and what could be ahead for the team in the near future.
“It’s been a grind and it hasn’t always been fun, but I think it’s been necessary for our group,” Herauf said when asked about the latter half of the season. “I think it's going to make us better in the end, I know it's made me a better coach going through this and it's humbled me, it's humbled all of us for sure. But we’re not there yet, for us we're just putting one in front of the other right now, playing 60 minutes at a time and I think that's kind of been part of our success.”
Regina currently has a 25-30-7-1 record and are 5-4-1-0 in their last 10 outings, but that’s been enough to maintain the aforementioned gap. Making the run even more impressive is how it’s come together at the perfect time of the season, putting the Pats on a playoff-game footing well before the postseason comes about.
That could bode well for when the games really start to matter in a couple weeks’ time.
“Everyone's playing for something and we haven't been part of this for a while, so that's why our first plan was to play meaningful games down the stretch,” Herauf said.
“They're different hockey games, it's a different thought process, it's a different commitment to the game and you can win different ways in the last 20 games. I think that learning experience is invaluable, it's really setting us up for the playoffs wherever we play. We're going to have a tough matchup any way it shakes out in the first round, but I think we're better prepared because we've been playing for our lives. We've been chasing playoff spots and we’ve only really been in this spot for two weeks or so. It's something that we had to gain back and now hopefully maintain down the home stretch.”
The Pats aren’t a star-laden team — Caden Brown leads Regina in scoring with 28 goals and 60 points in 59 games, Keets Fawcett is the only other player in the line-up at a point-a-game pace with 29 goals and 58 points in 54 games — but their overall balance has given many a team problems during their run of success.
That’s been a key factor, Herauf says, as the team has seen different players step up almost every night.
“That's the thing about our club right now, it hasn't been one particular person, it's been a lot of people stepping up on different nights,” he said. “Guys like Jace Egland on our team, Dayton Deschamps, guys that do a lot of stuff that’s so good for your hockey team away from the rink, at the rink, in the dressing room. And the older guys, our captains, they’re doing everything they can to stay in the line-up every night, taking care of their bodies.
“Hockey isn’t easy right now, no one is 100 per cent, and to me that’s the most impressive thing. Guys showing their character, that they want to be in the line-up every night and just grinding it out.”
Of course, you can’t talk about the Pats resurgence without bringing up standout rookie Maddox Schultz and his solid play down the stretch. The 15-year-old has had an impact as of late despite battling injuries and has found himself at a point-a-game pace over his last 10 games. All told, Schultz sits at 12 goals and 26 points in 32 games while joining fellow 2010 prospect Liam Pue in splitting time with the Sask Male AAA Hockey League’s Regina Pat Canadians.
“To me it was always about experience,” Herauf said of the duo’s campaign. “Once they get the experience and get the timing and are in the practices and in the games, they’re making the mistakes, they're getting they're correcting those mistakes, they're gonna get it better. It's just a matter of having that little bit of runway and they’ve had it now.”
Regina’s last five games see the Pats host Prince Albert on Saturday (7 p.m., Brandt Centre), travel to Moose Jaw on Sunday and travel to Prince Albert on Tuesday before finishing off with a home-and-home against Brandon on Mar. 20 and 21.
If things work out as planned for the Queen City crew, they could clinch a playoff spot with a win over the Warriors at Temple Gardens Centre (2 p.m., Sunday).
“We're starting to see the fruits of the labor right now and I think we're all very optimistic,” Herauf said. “This season is only gonna make us better, it's really it's given our players a new experience into winning and it's definitely upped the bar and expectation across our organization.
