VICTORIA 5
REGINA 3
The Regina Pats were wondering what that strange sensation was they were feeling Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
Nineteen games into the WHL season, the top-ranked junior hockey team in the country (15-1-3) finally tasted defeat in regulation time in a 5-3 loss to the Victoria Royals before 6,619 fans on military appreciation night.
Victoria goaltender Griffen Outhouse withstood a withering 46-shot barrage by a Pats team featuring six NHL draft picks and five players ranked by Central Scouting for the 2017 NHL draft.
鈥淣ot a lot of teams can keep these guys to under 40 shots,鈥� said Victoria coach Dave Lowry.
鈥淲e were extremely resilient and minimized second chances.鈥�
Victoria countered with 25 shots on Tyler Brown, making the most of them. None more so than Royals assistant captain Carter Folk, the 20-year-old native of Regina, who scored what turned out to be the winner at 17:06 of the third period with his first goal of the season.
鈥淭hat was a good time of game to get it,鈥� he said.
鈥淸Pats] are a good team and were undefeated for a reason.鈥�
It came down to Outhouse鈥檚 stubbornness in the Victoria crease.
鈥淐redit to my defencemen for giving me clear lanes so I could see the shots all the way from the point,鈥� he said, as the Royals moved to 13-8-2.
The game got off to a theatrical start when Tyler Soy, for a moment shaking off the effects of sliding hard into the end boards, scored on a penalty shot at 6:16 of the first period for his 12th goal of the season. Soy, favouring his shoulder, did not return to the game after the penalty shot. But not before he set the record for most career goals by a Royals player, 102, since the franchise moved to Victoria from Chilliwack in 2011-12 to eclipse the previous record of 101 held by Brandon Magee. The all-time Chilliwack-Victoria franchise record is 140 career goals held by Ryan Howse.
Dante Hannoun one-timed a Jack Walker pass on a two-man Victoria power play to make it 2-0 in the first period.
The Royals got into penalty trouble and it was only a matter of time before the Pats, with six players in the top-20 of WHL scoring, would capitalize. They did through defenceman Connor Hobbs, who scored twice on the night for Regina.
But then a Victoria penalty to Chaz Reddekopp proved ironically advantageous when Scott Walford spotted his fellow blueliner coming out of the box and hit him with a long pass that led to an unlikely breakaway goal by Reddekopp that made it 3-1 at 13:65 of the second period.
Regina defenceman Chase Harrison made it 3-2 at 19:46 of the second. But the Royals hung tough in the third period against the Pats鈥� unrelenting assault.
ICE CHIPS: The Royals host Kelowna tonight at 7 in the Rockets first visit to the Memorial Centre since that now-infamous goal last spring in Game 7 with .02 seconds remaining in regulation time that led to the WHL regular-season champion Royals being knocked out of the playoffs.
