The Regina Pats were unable to comeback from a two-goal Vancouver lead early in the third period as the Giants won 4-2 Saturday night at the Brandt Centre.
The Pats have started their games strong early on in the season, even putting up 15 shots in the first period to Vancouver’s five that night. However it was the Giants who found the back of the net first in this contest after Zach Ostapchuk scored from the left circle to make it 1-0 after one.
A few minutes into the second, defenceman Ryker Evans scored his first of the season from the left circle, assisted by Logan Nijhoff and Riley Krane, to tie it up 1-1.
The Giants answered back with just over a minute and a half to go in the middle frame thanks to an unassisted Milos Roman goal, making it 2-1 heading into the third.
That goal gave the Giants enough momentum to score again shortly after the start of the third. Jackson Shepard found his fourth goal of the year from Bowen Byram and Lukas Svejkovsky to extend their lead to two goals just 53 seconds in.
Past the halfway point in the period, Regina’s Garrett Wright set up Cole Dubinsky all alone in front to scored his first of the season, now a 3-2 scoreline.
But a breakaway goal for Milos Roman in the dying minutes of regulation damaged Regina’s hopes of finding an equalizer. The Giants handed the Pats their eighth loss in a row with a 4-2 win.
Despite the loss, Pats goaltending coach Rob Muntain believes it was his team’s best game of the year.
“We had lots of scoring chances, the energy was good, we were doing the right things, but unfortunately we made a couple mistakes that ended up in the back of our net and that’s what costed us,” said Muntain in his post-game interview.
The Pats outshot Vancouver 36-29 and went 0/6 on the powerplay. Danton Belluk picked up the loss with 25 saves.
Now at 1-8-0-0, the Pats will try to pick up their second win of the season when they host the Lethbridge Hurricanes (3-4-0-1) on Sunday afternoon from the Brandt Centre.
Catch all the action with the pre-game show beginning at around 3:30 p.m. and puck drop at 4:00 p.m. on 620 CKRM.
