Collapse!

[nivek_wahs]

http://rodpedersen.blogspot.com/


Collapse!

BRANDON -- The Pats were denied their 30th victory of the season Saturday night as they blew a 5-2 third period lead, and wound up losing 6-5 in overtime to the division-leading Wheat Kings here.

Juraj Simek scored the winner at 2:20 of the extra session as the Wheaties pulled 16 points up on Regina for first-place and lowered their magic number to clinch the division pennant to 6.

"I was disgusted by what I saw," fumed Pats' coach Curtis Hunt on CKRM's postgame show, "My biggest mistake was going to four lines. When we played with two lines in the second period, we scored bang, bang, bang. We had two defenceman who might as well have not got off the bus -- in fact one was minus-5. Our goalie Tommy collapsed in the third period, and their third goal was a 40-foot floater right through his legs. Maybe I'm being too frank here, but at this time of year with 10 games to go, we can't blow leads like that. But we'll fall forward into Tuesday's game against Tri-City and will learn from our mistakes."

The Pats scored four goals in the second half of the second period on Brandon goalie Tyler Plante to build up that 5-2 lead. Garrett Festerling scored twice, as did Brett Leffler while captain Kyle Deck had the other. The Pats were 0/1 on the pp and 4/5 on the pk. The loss dropped them to 29-27-1-5, but they moved nine points up on Swift Current for second-place and ten up on Prince Albert."

[nivek_wahs]

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/sports/story.html?id=c0abdc85-9ed1-4fb9-9009-59f03994b902


Brandon closer to clinching first

The Leader-Post
Published: Monday, February 26, 2007

A torrid third-period comeback has all but clinched first place in the WHL's East Division for the Brandon Wheat Kings.

The Regina Pats blew a 5-2 lead and lost 6-5 in overtime in Brandon on Saturday. The victory gave the Wheat Kings a 35-19-2-8 record and 80 points -- 16 more than the second-place Pats (29-27-2-4).

Brandon's magic number for clinching first place is three. Any combination of three Brandon victories or Regina losses will secure top spot for the Wheat Kings.

"We had just a complete collapse with guys not willing to pay the price,'' Pats head coach Curtis Hunt told James Shewaga of The Brandon Sun.

"We have guys wanting to overhandle the puck. We have guys not willing to pay attention to details and you see it on and off. And the funny thing is we talked about it between periods, (assistant coach) Terry (Perkins) and I, about these little mistakes that we made ... that you are not going to get away with in a visiting building against a team like Brandon.

"We felt fortunate to be up, but disappointed in the way that finished.''

Regina is still a solid bet to finish second in the East. With 65 points, the Pats are eight ahead of the third-place Prince Albert Raiders (25-30-3-3), who defeated the Saskatoon Blades 3-1 on Sunday. The Swift Current Broncos (26-33-1-2) dropped to fourth as a result of the Raiders victory. The Broncos are one point behind the Raiders and nine behind the Pats.

The Pats led 5-3 on Saturday until Mark Derlago scored with 1:04 left in the third period. Dustin Kohn forced overtime by scoring with 1.94 seconds remaining in the third period.

Juraj Simek followed with his 28th goal of the season at 2:40 of overtime.

"For sure it was a huge game for us, 5-2 down and we came back and it was great teamwork by everybody and a big goal and it was probably the happiest moment in my life,'' Simek told the Sun. "We gave up some stupid goals, really quick goals in the second period. But we stick together in the locker room and the hockey game is over when it's over and we came back and nobody gave up.''

Andrew Clark, Rob Klinkhammer and Ryan Reaves also scored for the Wheat Kings.

Brett Leffler and Garrett Festerling both scored twice for the Pats, who also got a goal from Kyle Deck.

Brandon goaltender Tyler Plante stopped 24 shots, while Tommy Tartaglione made 34 saves for Regina.

The Pats' next game is Tuesday, 7 p.m., against the visiting Tri-City Americans.

- In Moose Jaw on Saturday, Steven DaSilva scored three times as the Kootenay Ice scored seven unanswered goals in a 7-1 win over the host Warriors.

Jordan Knackstedt opened the scoring for the Warriors (23-36-3-0). Andrew Bailey, Curtis Billsten, Michael Busto and Clayton Bauer completed the scoring for the Ice.

The Warriors are to return to action Wednesday, 7 p.m., when they play host to Prince Albert.

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007

[Fight Guy]

After that game, I lost any hope I had for the Pats getting to 1st place. I don't see Brandon losing any steam at the end here. The Pats just can't break down like that at this time of the season. I hope they do in fact learn from this as I think it may be the biggest lead they have blown. When Brandon scored with 2 seconds left, I knew the Pats were going to lose. I really hope they don;t let this happen come playoffs.

[witness]

The Pats getting 1st place went out the window about 10 days ago. When the Pats had there hot streak, Brandon was still playing well. The Pats were unable to get to the 5 or 6 points behind that they needed to make a run at first.

The interesting thing is that if the Pats can go 7 of 10 in the last games, they can end up the season with 36 wins. Who would have predicted that at Christmas time?

Playoff hockey is all about oportunitist scoring and goaltending. If the Pats can get contribution from everybody (which they have the pats two months), and Rowatt plays well, they can do OK.

[patsdude114]

the Pats lost any hope of getting 1st place on the weekend of Feb16, 17, and 18 the 3 game weekend which started in Red Deer, then the Hat, and then back home against MJ......we got 0 points out of a possible 6 we needed at least 4 that that weekend......


I had been telling my dad for awhile now we wouldnt catch Brandon....we made a nice run at it but fell apart during that string of games (mentioned above) its hard to get 1st place when u only play good hockey in th elast 2.5 months of play..........before xmas we were a mediocore, a team with talent but couldnt jell together... as long as we carry our play into the playoffs we should be able to finally reach the 2nd round, a place we havent been since (if i remember correctly) 1998 when we won the division then got injuries in the playoffs

[Fight Guy]

Yeah, that is true, but the Brandon game just put the nail in the coffin. At the point when Brandon scored with 2 seconds left, I had lost all hope in the team completely(not really, but you know what I mean). Either way, they are still capable of making it to AT LEAST the second round. Best bet is to get as many points as possible and hope it helps with opponent decisions along the way.