The Regina Pats are off to a middling 7-6-0-1 start, which looks worse because of a pair of 6-3 losses over the weekend.
Still, their first 14 games represent signs of growth. The Pats only snuck into the playoffs late in the season a year ago and lost in the first round, and they missed the postseason entirely in the previous two campaigns.
But average is no longer good enough for coach David Bell. He wants to see a change in mentality.
“The group has been at the bottom of the pile for the last three years,” he said Monday on the SportsCage. “You might get backup goalies. You might not (face) the best lineup every night. They’ve come out of that.
“We’re not the prey anymore. We have to learn to have the mindset of the predator.”
The Pats have looked like a fierce lion at times this season. They started the season 6-0 at home before losing for the first time in Regina on Saturday to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
That loss annoyed the coach, though.
“A team’s not going to come in and play us lightly, and they didn’t,” Bell said. “We weren’t ready for that. We didn’t understand that teams are getting amped up to play us.”
And then there’s their play on the road. The Pats have been more like the lion’s lunch there thanks to their 1-5-0-1 mark as the away team. They lost in Moose Jaw on Saturday.
“We beat Moose Jaw handily in our building (on Oct. 23) and have to understand that they’re amped up going back to their building,” Bell said. “They have a response. They’re a prideful group. They don’t want that to happen again. And we weren’t ready for that.”
It hasn’t helped the Pats that they’re without their two best young players. Alternate captain Maddox Schultz and WHL rookie of the month Liam Pue are captaining the two Canadian teams at the under-17 world championship in Oakville, Ont.
They’ve missed the last three games, including a 3-0 win over Everett last Tuesday.
The Pats are idle until they host the East Division-leading Brandon Wheat Kings on Friday. That’s the first of four contests before they begin their six-game British Columbia road trip in Prince George on Nov. 18.
Bell wants to see the players more dialled in before they head west.
“It’s a really powerful thing, momentum, so is confidence,” he said. “They go hand in hand. That B.C. trip’s going to be tough, but you can’t look ahead of Friday night.”
