Regina Pats Jonas Kohn defenceman checks Medicine Hat Tigers forward Yaroslav Bryzgalov in the first period of Game 5 Saturday at Co-op Place. The Tigers took Game 5 5-4 in overtime, winning the series 4-1.--NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
After a few years of shuffling the deck, the Regina Pats can add playoff cards to their young hand.
After missing the postseason the last two years, the Pats pushed the defending WHL Champion Medicine Hat Tigers throughout the first-round series, ultimately losing out in a 5-4, Game 5 loss Saturday in Medicine Hat.
They opened the scoring in three of the games, including Saturday, where they skated to a 3-0 and then 4-1 lead halfway through the second period, looking destined for a Game 6 on home ice.
A pair of late second-period goals brought the Tigers within one entering the third period. A dump-in on a Tigers power play produced an unreplicable bounce off the stanchion behind the Regina net, bouncing out into the slot for Liam Ruck to force overtime where Cam Parr sealed the series just 51 seconds after puck drop.
It was a bounce Regina head coach Brad Herauf has never seen before, especially not in that moment of the game.
“That does happen for sure, just not with five minutes left in a game where it’s a do-or-die game. That was just an unfortunate sequence of events,” Herauf said. “It’s no one’s fault. It just wasn’t in the cards for us.”
The Pats split the opening weekend of the series, losing Game 1 6-2 before responding with a 4-2, Game 2 win. Medicine Hat rattled off a pair of wins in the Queen City, taking Game 3 8-2 and Game 4 4-2 before ending the series in five.
Despite the Game 5 and first-round series loss, Herauf commended his team for pushing the defending league champions as much as they did in the series.
“It was a great learning experience for us,. Medicine Hat is one of the top teams in the country for a reason, and the biggest thing for us, we wanted to make it difficult on them,” Herauf said. “We wanted them to have to change their game, because if they don’t change their game, they’re just going to run right over you, and I feel like we should be proud of that.
“We made them adapt and change some things they were doing with their lines, even with some of their structure. We felt we were able to, you know, make it real difficult on them. And just tonight, a couple unlucky bounces and we just weren’t on the right end of the bounces tonight.”
The Pats made it into the playoffs in the last weekend of the regular season, entering as the seventh seed with a 25-34-7-2 record. It was their first playoff appearance since 2023, with just one carryover left on the roster from that first-round series against the Saskatoon Blades.
Forward Ruslan Karimov, joining the Pats midseason after being waived from the OHL’s Sarnia Sting, led them in playoff scoring with four goals and five points in the five games. Their two top-three picks from the 2025 WHL Draft, Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue, played two games in the series. Pue had a goal and Schultz had an assist in Game 3.
There’s a lot of excitement around the Pats’ future, with playoff experience added to the mix after the series with the Tigers. Herauf hopes his team walks away from the series with more self belief as their bar of expectations rises heading toward September.
“I can finally say we’re starting to get ourselves out of this rebuild, we’re starting to build out and build better,” Herauf said. “I thank all the players who have been around the last couple years, because it’s been a very difficult thing, any kind of rebuild like this. When you’re wired to win and be competitive, it’s hard to accept what you have to go through.
“Hats off to our players, our whole organization, office staff, people did a really great job this year. So we just take his learning lesson in our back pocket and we’ll be ready next September.”
