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Pats top Hurricanes 6-2 to tie Eastern Conference Championship

Apr 27, 2017 | 12:11 AM

LETHBRIDGE – “We weren’t very good… I thought Regina was way more desperate, they were way more urgent. They played hard and we didn’t.”

Those words came from Lethbridge Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio, following a 6-2 beat down at the hands of the Regina Pats Wednesday night (Apr. 26).

The Pats were clearly the better team as they evened-up the Eastern Conference Championship at two wins apiece, one night after it was the Hurricanes who controlled play for most of the contest.

In what’s become a bit of a recurring theme in these playoffs, Stuart Skinner was called upon early and often in the Hurricanes’ net, as Regina poured on the pressure.

A deflection in-front by Braydon Buziak got the Pats on the board just under 10 minutes into the game, but the real offence would have to wait until the second.

Two minutes into the next period, Hurricanes’ rookie Dylan Cozens – who impresses more and more with each game – drove hard to the Pats’ net and banged in his own rebound to tie things up. The two clubs then traded goals, knotting the score 2-2.

Despite being badly outshot 17-7 in the second, the Hurricanes appeared ready to go into the final frame in a relatively good position. That is until the last two minutes of the period unfolded.

The game winner came with 1:54 left on the clock, on a play that will almost certainly give Lethbridge defenceman Igor Merezhko nightmares for the next few nights. Circling out of the corner, Pats’ captain Adam Brooks fired the puck towards the net, with none of his teammates even really in the vicinity to do something with it. Trying to catch the puck with his skates, Merezhko inadvertently redirected it into his own net.

The Pats then capitalized again just over a minute later, as Dawson Leedahl leaned into a one-timer in the slot, giving his team a 4-2 lead heading into the third.

Two more goals in the final 20 minutes – including an empty netter – would ice the win for Regina.

“It’s been a really big roller-coaster for us,” said Hurricanes’ captain Tyler Wong, as he tried to assess what happened to his team. “We played really good, really bad, really good, really bad, a lot of the time in the last few weeks here, so we’ve got to find a way to be more consistent.

“I think it’s just guys looking past the game,” Wong continued. “I think that we get up in a series 2-1, and then we think about when we can close out the series instead of just worrying about the next game. So, it’s maturity, it’s just learning from our mistakes and just finding a way to tune all those distractions out.”

As he’s done so often throughout this post-season run – which has now been going on for just over a month – Kisio took a calming breath, stating that they’ve been in this position before, and that at the beginning of the season they would have been thrilled to have the series tied in the Eastern final.

“It’s a best of three now, so we’re basically in the same spot we started,” he explained. “It’s just going back [into Regina], and we better be ready to compete and work a lot hard than we did tonight.”

Game five will go ahead Friday (Apr. 28) in Regina, with the series then coming back to Lethbridge for game six on Sunday (Apr. 30).