By Shane O'Neill

Raiders can’t seal the deal against Pats, fall in OT

Feb 20, 2017 | 7:08 PM

It was a rough and tumble Family Day at the Art Hauser Centre on Monday afternoon.

The Regina Pats came out on top of the Prince Albert Raiders in overtime by a score of 3-2 in a heavy hitting affair.

Physicality was on display for much of the game, as Raiders put the WHL leading Regina Pats’ high-powered offence to the test. The Raiders were ready to answer the call, and went toe-to-toe and hit-for-hit for the whole game.

Big saves on both ends of the ice and penalties galore were the story of the first. Despite being all Pats early, the Raiders stayed persistent and led in the shot department 15-12 after the 20 minutes.

After the game, Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid said being prepared, physically, for a tough game was something his team worked on.

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“We just didn’t want them to be free-wheeling and playing an easy game,” Habscheid explained. “Sometimes, if they have space, they’ve got some skill to do some stuff so we wanted to take that space away from them.”

Sean Montgomery opened the scoring in the first on the power play with his 13th of the season, burying the rebound on a Max Martin blast from the point. But it was the play of starting goalie Ian Scott that grabbed the most attention; he made two highlight reel glove saves to fend off a surging Pats attack.

Scott made 41 saves on 44 shots in total, and said the team’s confidence on the ice, and in the dressing room, has helped him prepare for big games.

“It’s good to have the confidence that we can beat any team in the league and I think we proved that tonight,” he said after the game. “I think all of us had the confidence that this is a team to beat.”

Raider captain Tim Vanstone put Prince Albert up 2-1 at 11:07 of the second, with a deflection on a big point blast from Vojtech Budik on the power play.

The Pats got goals from Leedahl and Mahura at the top and bottom of the second period to tie the game. Sam Steel earned his 65th and 66th assists of the season to give the Anaheim Ducks prospect 105 points on the season so far.

But it was Dawson Leedahl, the Pats big winger, who sealed the game. Notching his second goal of the afternoon, as Raider’s goalie Ian Scott was forced to use the stick of one his players, in lieu of his own.

Despite losing the second point, coach Habscheid believed Monday was a character-defining game for his group.

“I think it’s a good sign of how far we’ve come,” he said. “They kind of had their way with us a little bit earlier in the year, and now I thought we should have won the game. We got a point off of them and they knew we game to play.”

The Raiders are back in action on Friday, when the open a home-and-home series against the Blades at the Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon. Game number two will be on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.

shane.oneill@paNOW.com

On Twitter: @stroneill