Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's not, and who's not. This week's list induces...
While it wasn’t the results Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue wanted, it was still a special night for the Regina Pats’ top draft picks.
After playing two games on the road, the Pats held their home opener on Friday at the Brandt Centre. That allowed the Pats faithful to watch Schultz, the first overall pick in this year’s WHL bantam draft, and Pue, who was selected two picks later at third overall.
“It was pretty fun playing in front of the home crowd. I wish we could have brought home a W but we could have fixed up some little things but we started to get into our groove. We just need to play a full 60 (minutes),” said Pue, who had an assist in the 6-4 loss to the Prince Albert Raiders.
While Pue is from B.C., Schultz grew up in Medicine Hat, Alta. and then in Regina, where he played for the Pat Canadians last season. He got a chance to play in Medicine Hat last week and followed it up quickly by getting a chance to appear in front of the crowd in the Queen City.
“It feels good. Not the result we wanted but it was fun to play in and we had a good crowd tonight,” Schultz said. “Shout out to all the fans who came out to watch.”
Pats head coach Brad Herauf said he thought both 15-year-olds played well.
“Maddox takes every game — maybe this one was more special than other ones — but for him, he’s always so dialled in. Same for Liam. Liam is a fierce competitor and works his tail off,” Herauf said.
The two are both playing for the Pat Canadians this season as well as 34 games with the WHL team as well.
Herauf admits the league is quite the step up for 15 year olds to make.
“The last time we had 15-year-olds in the league that were playing like this, they were in the bubble and it was during COVID. They aren’t going to school and they are completely full of energy. What these two boys are facing is a completely different animal and something completely different,” Herauf said. “I think they do a really good job. They show up every day ready to work … These guys have more games on their bodies this week than our own players do. I think they are both doing a really good job at taking care of themselves and adapting to the WHL game.”
Unfortunately for the Pats on the ice, the night wasn’t a good one.
The Raiders were able to get out to a big lead in the opening period, with Brayden Dube, Owen Corkish and Ben Harvey all getting pucks past Regina goaltender Kelton Pyne.
Regina took four penalties in the first period, with the Raiders scoring on two power play opportunities.
“We really dug ourselves a hole in the first 10 minutes, taking three straight penalties. They scored on a couple of those chances and some breakdowns by us on our penalty-kill,” Herauf said. “We dug ourselves a hole in the first period. We battled out of it and kept trying to come back.”
In period two, the struggles continued as Aiden Oring scored just 1:04 into the frame. That led to the Pats making a goaltender change, putting in Taylor Tabashniuk.
Regina did battle back in the second period, with Julien Maze putting the puck between his legs and just getting it through the gap between Raiders goaltender Steele Bass’ arm and torso. That brought some life to the Regina team, with Caden Brown and Cohen Klassen scoring as well.
But another early goal by Raiders’ skater Daxon Rudolph put an end to any sort of comeback at the Brandt Centre. Reese Hamilton did score for Regina to pull within one but Max Heise scored the empty-netter to finish things off.
The Pats will host the Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday.
