Connor Bedard made up for lost time last night in his return to the Regina Pats.
Returning from the World Juniors Bedard scored four goals, including the overtime winner, in a thrilling 7-6 Pats victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors at the Brandt Centre.
Logan Nijhoff (13) and Cole Dubinsky (10) would get the offence rolling with a pair of shorthanded goals before Moose Jaw would tie things up. From there, the teams would trade goals, with Begard (15,16,17) scoring the Pats’ following three goals until Drew Englot (5) would score on the powerplay, but Moose Jaw would tie it once again to send the game to overtime.
In overtime, Nijhoff would circle the net and pass the puck to Bedard (18), who gave Regina their 14th win on the season.
Might as well make it
Connor Bedard with the OT winner!
Wowzers @WHLPats | @BarDown pic.twitter.com/aAdbfKmyLg
— Canadian Hockey League (@CHLHockey) January 2, 2022
For Bedard, this marks his first career WHL hat-trick and his third career overtime winner.
“Even coming into the game I felt this was one of the better crowds we’ve had. A lot of people showed up, it was good, we feel that and we can kind of build off of that momentum,” Bedard said. “First game back, you know obviously didn’t want to come back with the whole World Juniors, but to be back is good and it’s a lot of fun to play here. I think it was just the emotion of getting back into the lineup and being able to get a big goal.”
“I’ve been itching to get one. I’ve had lots of two-goal games, I could never really get the hatty, but it feels good,” he continued. “Obviously, it was a tight game so any goal we were getting was nice to see go in, so it’s definitely kind of good to get that out of the way and get the first hat-trick.”
The Pats will next play on Friday as they travel to Saskatoon to face the Blades in the first part.
