Defence the key to Pats' success
Greg Harder, The Leader-Post
Published: Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Regina Pats are stealing a page from Team Canada's playbook.
The Pats' renewed commitment to team defence is suspiciously reminiscent of the manner in which Canada won a gold medal at the recent world junior championship in Sweden.
Pats head coach Curtis Hunt was an assistant with the national junior squad, mentoring under noted defensive strategist Craig Hartsburg.
Coincidence? We think not.
"Any time you have success or see success you're crazy not to try to model it to your own organization," offered Hunt, whose team hits the road tonight against the Swift Current Broncos. "(Winning) reinforces what you always believed, but sometimes you get away from things. Sometimes during the course of the year you get away from the simplest things."
Like playing solid fundamental defence.
The Pats seem to have embraced that theory of late, posting a record of 6-3 since the New Year. In those six wins, Regina has allowed just eight goals.
"Defence wins championships, that's the bottom line," said Hunt. "We were giving up too many shots so we went back to the beginning of the year (when they were outshooting teams with regularity). It was a pretty logical starting point."
Hunt also drew upon his experience at the world juniors, where he was responsible for overseeing a defence that allowed just seven goals in six games.
While giving credit to his rearguards, Hunt felt the key to Canada's defensive dominance was the backchecking pressure of the team's forwards, their ability to clog up the middle of the ice and outnumber opponents at the blueline.
The Pats are trying to follow the same formula.
"The thing about defence is it's the hardest thing to do in terms of work," noted Hunt. "That's why I'm so proud of our guys, because it's not always fun. It's tedious. It's attention to detail. It's boring. There's pride in defence but the fun part of the game is scoring. That's where I give our kids full marks for their commitment. We've had some success as a result."
Most of the focus around the Pats' struggles this season has been their inconsistent offence. The acquisitions of Troy Ofukany, Kirt Hill and Kaspars Saulietis were designed to help fix that deficiency, but it wasn't until the team got back to basics that the wins started to rematerialize.
In this case, the best offence really is a good defence.
"We've been really trying to gain all momentum off of good defensive play," assistant coach Terry Perkins confirmed after Sunday's 4-1 win over the Spokane Chiefs. "We believe we're a good transition team and we can really take advantage of turnovers, whether they happen in our zone or the neutral zone. We can really pressure teams with our speed and then get in and cycle in the offensive zone. It's a recipe for success. It takes a lot of effort by every line, by every player, to stay disciplined and not freelance. I think it's something we've been selling all year but we're finally starting to buy in and do it on a consistent basis."
The question is: Can they keep it up?
It's easier to sell players on an all-out commitment to defence when the short-term prize is a gold medal. It's a lot tougher when they have to carry it through a 72-game regular season.
"It becomes a mental thing and it becomes a culture thing," added Hunt. "You are what you value the most. If you look at winning teams, they have a low goals-against average, great special teams, especially penalty kill, (strong) work ethic, commitment to detail, and accountability. I think (by improving those areas) our culture continues to get stronger."
© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2007
Defence the key to Pats' success
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