REGINA — The time is finally here for the Regina Pats.
In just over 24 hours time, the Queen City crew will take the ice in the Western Hockey League playoffs for the first time since the 2022-23 campaign, when they took the eventual Eastern Conference finalist Saskatoon to seven games in a narrow first-round loss.
Their postseason path won’t be any easier this time around, with the defending WHL champion Medicine Hat Tigers and their winning pedigree waiting in the wings. But that’s not to say the Pats have any intention of rolling over when the series begins Friday night in Medicine Hat, and with a bit of luck and some of their best games of the season, the hope for something special is there.
Head coach Brad Herauf joined The SportsCage’s Barney Shynkaruk and Don Hewitt to talk about the postseason on Wednesday afternoon, beginning with their outlook heading into Game 1.
“I think that obviously we're not satisfied, we want to go on and we want to play as deep as possible here.” Herauf said, adding that thinking of themselves as David taking on Goliath is selling themselves short.
“There's been times where we played our best hockey against them and the game has been different. I think that once we give our best game, we can look ourselves in the mirror and be like, ‘Hey, we gave our best shot. This is what we have. This is what we did’. With our group right now, that's what we're looking forward to doing on Friday and Saturday night and let the chips fall where they may.”
Putting that best foot forward will undoubtedly be a difficult task against the Tigers, who put together a 50-10-5-3 regular season record and missed out on the Eastern Conference title by only two points. They also swept Regina in the season series, outscoring the Pats 26-7 in the process, including a 6-0 win in Medicine Hat in their most recent meeting on March 10.
Herauf feels the key to success against such a dangerous team will be to play the style of hockey that brought them streaks of success this season — use their aggressive play to make the Tigers uncomfortable and take them out of their game.
“In any sense, whenever you're playing teams of that magnitude, if it's hockey, football, basketball, you've got to be able to make them feel uncomfortable, make them adjust,” he said. “If they don't have to adjust, well, then they're just playing to their strengths the whole time, so we've got to be able to turn the game a little bit differently than the way that they want to play.”
That’s where an aggressive style can make a difference, with Herauf taking a ‘safe is death’ approach to dealing with what the Tigers deliver.
“I think that sitting back and just letting them run plays and start feeling good about themselves, you're just hoping at that point they miss the net,” Herauf explained. “So if we're going to feed the transition, if we're going to turn the puck over, if we can't get pucks behind the defensemen, we'll be in trouble. You have to be able to have the courage to go at them. If they're going to beat you, sure, they're going to beat you. But at least they're going to beat you making a play, making them do something instead of just allowing them to eventually just break you down.”
The conversation also touched on the progress the team has made in the past season, especially with their return to the plays and what looks like an extremely bright future ahead, centering around the likes of Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue leading the team.
To that end, Herauf is happy with the approach general manager Dale Derkatch has taken in letting the team grow together and build from within, especially when it comes to creating a team culture.
“I think Dale came in and put culture ahead of talent and put being a Pat ahead of points and I think it's going to pay off in the long run,” Herauf said. “We've got some really good older guys that have set our culture up for the next few years to come, and we're getting younger guys that are going to be here through the golden years of Liam and Maddox that are going to be 19, 20 year old, really good playerrs.
"We have some players already in-house to play around those guys, plus we have the assets to go and add. So I think (even with) standing pat this year, as difficult as it may have been, Dale's done a good job at meeting our team expectations, which was the playoffs. And we've done it without mortgaging any of the future.”
Herauf was also asked about his future status with the team, with his contract up at the end of the campaign. As one might expect, he was quick to demure, opting more to focus on the immediate task at hand.
“All those things will play themselves out the way that they're supposed to at the end of the year and I definitely want to see this thing through,” Herauf said. “I think that we've gotten better, I think that we're trending in the right direction, and myself, I couldn't be more proud than to lead this team going forward.”
The first round series begins with Games 1 and 2 in Medicine Hat on Friday and Saturday night before the series reverts to Regina for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Brandt Centre. Other games, if necessary, will see Game 5 in Medicine Hat on April 4, Game 6 in Regina on April 5 and Game 7 in Medicine Hat on April 7.
