Progression made in loss on the road
Already a team stacked with first-year players, the Prince Albert Mintos took a beaten and battered squad to Regina to take on an elite Pat Canadians club, and fared quite well.
Defencemen Wyatt Arndt, Carsen Robertson and Braden Schneider were sidelined in the 5-2 defeat, but the young guns and affiliated players made a game out of it.
“We’re happy leaving there even though it was a loss,” general manager Don Fauchoux said.
“Nobody outshoots Regina but we did. We carried lots of the play. The difference is, they have a crazy power play and ours needs more work. We had a full two-man advantage there where we didn’t score, you know, that was the turning point of the game. We have to fine-tune that a little more, but we definitely skated with them, played with them, outshot them.”
The Mintos were able to fire 30 shots on net to Regina’s 23, but the Pats cashed in on two of four opportunities on the man advantage. Regina has scored a power play marker in their last eight games, finding the back of the net 16 times over that span. Looking across the boards, Prince Albert couldn’t capitalize on five chances and have failed to score with a man up in their last three games.
Ben Manson, who plays at the AA level with the Prince Albert Raiders, was one of two reserve players filling in and contributed right away. Corralling a pass from Logan Barlage, Manson ripped home his first career AAA goal to give the Mintos a 1-0 lead early in the first. For Fauchoux, it’s nice to see a player like Manson get his feet wet.
“They definitely helped us out [Manson and Ryan Smith], we are going to hopefully lean on them a little bit more here,” he said.
“Our injuries are a little bit significant so, we’ll definitely put those guys to use and they are not out of place.”
Kyle Schneider scored the second and final goal for the Mintos during the Sunday matinee. Connor Pyne and Jacob Leicht collaborated on the tally.
Prince Albert now has a much-needed week off before going toe-to-toe with the Yorkton RawTech Maulers for a mini two-game series on the road this weekend. In terms of healing up, Schneider will be back from a sickness, Arndt is hopeful to return and Robertson may need some extra time to rest an upper body injury.
With the loss in Regina, the green and yellow now have a record of 12-11-0-1 and have lost two in a row. They look to snap that streak against a (11-12-0-2) Maulers team who have lost three consecutive contests, sitting on the cusp of a playoff spot.
