Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Disgruntled Paddock sounds off . . . Tigers roar in Brandon . . . Graham hot for Broncos


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F Lukáš Králík (Victoria, 2011-12) has signed a "monthly contract" with Šumperk (Czech Republic, 2. Liga). Last season, he had one assist in two games with Epinal (France, Ligue Magnus), one goal in four games with Brest (same), and two goals and nine assists in 16 games with Mulhouse (France, Division 1). . . .
F Jakub Rumpel (Medicine Hat, 2006-07) has been released after an unsuccessful tryout with Schönheide (Germany, Oberliga). He had a goal and two assists in four games. . . . 
F T.J. Galiardi (Calgary, 2007-08) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with Medveščak Zagreb (Croatia, KHL). Last season, he had three goals and 12 assists in 29 games with Malmö (Sweden, SHL). He was in camp with the St. Louis Blues (NHL) on a PTO but was released on Oct. 1.
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Defeat doesn’t rest easily on the shoulder of John Paddock, the general manager and head coach of the Regina Pats.
Paddock knows how good his hockey team can be and has been for most of this season. However, he didn’t think it was very good during a 5-2 loss to the Cougars in Prince George on Tuesday night.
Never mind that it was only the Pats’ second regulation-time loss this season.
Chatting with play-by-play man Phil Andrews after the game, Paddock didn’t bother hide his
JOHN PADDOCK
disappointment and frustration.
“For probably 50 of 60 minutes we had no inclination to play at all,” Paddock said. “We did not want the puck. We could not move it hard. We didn’t want it if it was coming to us. It was really bad.”
When Andrews ventured that perhaps the way the Cougars played had something to do with the Pats’ performance, Paddock was quick with his response.
“No,” he said. “We didn’t want the puck. We didn’t want to play. (The Cougars) have a disciplined system in the neutral zone. They turn the puck over and they go quick. But I couldn’t tell you because we never gave ourselves a chance.”
Paddock pointed to a 5-on-3 break in the latter half of the game when “we couldn’t put a pass on a stick . . .”
He also pointed a finger or two at goaltender Tyler Brown, who started out by surrendering three shots on nine shots.
“He made some good saves in the second and third periods,” Paddock said, “but he’s just like the other players. Two short side goals go in . . . he did not help us in the first period, just like he didn’t have any help from 18 skaters.”
When Andrews ventured that perhaps the game was a learning opportunity, Paddock scoffed.
“I don’t think there’s anything to learn,” he said, “other than if you don’t want to play . . . that means you have to get the puck and you have to make plays with it and you have to play hard with the puck. . . . There’s nothing else to learn.”
Regina F Sam Steel, the WHL’s leading scorer, left the game in the second period with an undisclosed injury, although he returned in the third. Asked about Steel’s condition, Paddock simply replied: “I got nothing on nothing.”
Paddock certainly was consistent with his opinion, as he told Greg Harder of the Regina Leader-Post:
“We didn’t want to play. You have to have the puck for a game of hockey and we didn’t want to touch it or make a play with it. We didn’t give (the Cougars) any resistance in any area at all. They just did what they wanted to do. If we would have played like that against anybody in the league we would have lost.”
Referring to the Cougars, Paddock told Harder:
“They had a good neutral-zone transition. If you don’t do the right things and get the puck by them they counter-attack really good. Past that, I don’t know (how to evaluate them) because we didn’t do anything. They could have played in their sweat pants and probably won the game easily.”
A night’s sleep — assuming that he slept — didn’t cause Paddock to soften his approach, either.
“Two or three people have asked me how good Prince George is,” Paddock told Harder on Wednesday.“I don’t have any idea because we didn’t compete. We may as well have not come to the rink.
“This is a self-inflicted thing that should never happen. There are a whole bunch of situations or adversity that we know we’re going to go through during the season that make you stronger. I hope it will but this is completely unexplainable.”
The Pats ventured into the B.C. Division as the only one of the CHL’s 60 teams not have tasted defeat in regulation time. They now have two of those on their record, having lost 5-3 to the Royals in Victoria on Saturday before Tuesday’s setback in Prince George. In between, the Pats dropped the host Vancouver Giants, 8-3, on Sunday.
Next up for the Pats will be the Kamloops Blazers on Friday, before the long trip comes to an end in Kelowna with a Saturday date with the Rockets.
The Pats (16-2-3) were the CHL’s top-ranked team when they left home. But they slipped to No. 2 on Wednesday, with the Cougars moving from fifth to first.
The Cougars (18-4-2) now lead the WHL’s overall standings by one point over the Medicine Hat Tigers (18-5-1), who seem to flying under the radar despite having won seven straight and being 10-1-0 in their past 11 games. Regina is fourth, three points in arrears of the Cougars.
The Cougars next will play on Saturday when they meet the host Everett Silvertips (16-3-4), who are just two points out of top spot.
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Just wondering:
On Nov. 11, Peter Anholt, the general manager of the Lethbridge Hurricanes, was fined $1,000 by the WHL “for public comments” he had made two days earlier. In those comments, Anholt was critical of a player whom he had just traded away.
If being critical of one player is worth a grand, what’s it worth when a general manager/head coach rips into 19 players?
Hey, just asking.
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If you’ve got a comment, some information you would like to pass along, or if you just want to say hello, feel free to contact me at greggdrinnan@gmail.com.
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Coaching Game
Mark McNaughton has taken over as the general manager and head coach of the junior B Princeton Posse of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey  League. A former associate head coach with the Posse, McNaughton has agreed to fill the positions for the remainder of this season. Dan Hillman and Connor Martin remain on staff as assistant coaches. . . . McNaughton replaces Geoff Goodman, who was fired on Nov. 16.
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JUST NOTES:

The Everett Silvertips have dropped D Mackenzie Dwyer, 19, from their roster. He is expected to report to the MJHL’s Portage Terriers. From Winnipeg, Dwyer was an 11th-round selection by the Saskatoon Blades in the 2012 bantam draft. He was pointless in 13 games this season.In 35 career games, 33 of them with Everett, he has one goal and three assists.
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WEDNESDAY’S GAMES:

At Brandon, the Medicine Hat Tigers erased a 2-1 second-period deficit with three straight goals and
CHAD BUTCHER
went on to score a 5-3 victory over the Wheat Kings. . . . The Tigers (18-5-1) have won seven in a row. They lead the Central Division by 11 points. They also lead the Eastern Conference by two points over Regina, although the Pats hold three games in hand. . . . The Wheat Kings (12-8-3) had won their previous five games. . . . F Chad Butcher, who also had two assists, gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead just 50 seconds into the game. He’s got nine goals. . . . The Wheat Kings took a 2-1 lead on two goals by F Reid Duke (15), who scored a PP goal at 4:50 of the first and scored again at 6:37 of the second. . . . Medicine Hat D David Quenneville tied it with his 12th goal, on a PP, at 16:26. . . . F Steve Owre put the Tigers out front with No. 5, at 1:52 of the third, and F Mark Rassell added another at 7:05. . . . Brandon F Stelio Mattheos got his 11th goal, on a PP, at 13:00, before Rassell (14) finished the scoring shorthanded at 19:11. . . . Owre and Quenneville each added an assist to their goals. . . . G Nick Schneider stopped 21 shots in winning his WHL-leading 17th game. . . . Brandon got 32 stops from Jordan Papirny. . . . The Wheat Kings were 2-4 on the PP; the Tigers were 1-5. . . . Brandon continues to play without F Nolan Patrick. He last played on Oct. 11 and now has missed 17 games this season. . . . Announced attendance: 4,135.
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At Everett, G Carter Hart stopped 37 shots to lead the Silvertips to a 3-0 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . Hart has two shutouts this season and 12 for his career. . . . He turned aside 18 shots in the first period and 10 in the third. . . . F Matt Fonteyne scored what turned out to be the winning goal at 5:57 of the first period. He has five this season. . . . F Riley Sutter, who also had an assist, added his ninth at 14:46 of the first and F Orrin Centazzo got his second at 2:04 of the third period. . . . G Rylan Toth started for Seattle and allowed two goals on eight shots. Matt Berlin played the last two periods, stopping 15 of 16 shots. . . . The Silvertips were 1-5 on the PP; the Thunderbirds were 0-3. . . . Everett (16-3-4) had lost its previous two games (0-1-1). . . . Seattle (11-9-2) had points in its previous five games (4-0-1). . . . Announced attendance: 4,434.
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At Kamloops, the Spokane Chiefs got all their goals from import players in a 3-2 victory over the Blazers.
PAVEL KOUSAL
. . . F Pavel Kousal scored twice, giving him six goals, and F Ondrej Nalman got his second of the season. Both are from Jihlava, Czech Republic. . . . Najman put Spokane ahead 48 seconds into the first period, with Kousal making it 2-0 at 9:25. . . . Kamloops F Rudolfs Balcers, a Latvian freshman, scored his 15th goal at 14:07. . . . Kousal restored the two-goal edge at 5:24 of the second period, with F Garrett Pilon (5) pulling the home side back to within one at 12:32. . . . The Chiefs put up a strong defensive front in the third period, limiting the Blazers to six shots. . . . G Jayden Sittler turned aside 25 shots for the Chiefs. . . . Kamloops got 25 saves from Connor Ingram. . . . Spokane was 1-2 on the PP; Kamloops was 0-4. . . . The Chiefs, who had lost seven in a row to Kamloops, improved to 9-8-5. . . . The Blazers (14-11-1), who beat the host Chiefs 6-4 on Saturday, had won their previous three games. . . . Blazers F Collin Shirley played in his 300th regular-season game — 71 with the Kootenay Ice and 229 with Kamloops. . . . The Chiefs scratched injured forwards Ethan McIndoe, Markson Bechtold, Jake McGrew, who won’t play again this season, Kailer Yamamoto and Tanner Wishnowski. They brought in F Eli Zummack from the major midget Okanagan Rockets, who play out of his hometown of Kelowna. Zummack has 20 points, including six goals, in 10 games with the Rockets. . . . Kamloops head coach Don Hay has 689 victories, second in WHL history behind former Portland head coach Ken Hodge. Spokane head coach Don Nachbaur is third on the WHL’s career list, with 674. . . . Mike Moore, the general manager and vice-president of business operations with the Calgary Hitmen, and Dallas Thompson, their B.C. director of scouting, were in the house. . . . Announced attendance: 3,259.
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At Cranbrook, B.C., F Jake Elmer’s shootout goal gave the Kootenay Ice a 6-5 victory over the Red Deer
JAKE ELMER
Rebels. . . . Elmer, who was acquired from the Regina Pats on Monday, was playing his first game with the Ice. He also had an assist. Before driving to Cranbrook, Elmer had been with the AJHL’s Grande Prairie Storm. . . . The Ice erased a 4-2 deficit in the third period and actually led 5-4 with fewer than four minutes to play in the third period. . . . Kootenay F Matt Alfaro (8) scored at 3:28 of the third to cut the deficit to one. . . . D Cale Fleury (5) tied the score at 11:08 and F Noah Philp (3) put the home boys ahead at 12:29. . . . Red Deer F Michael Spacek (14) forced OT at 16:15. . . . Kootenay F Zak Zborosky continued his outstanding season with a goal, his 19th, and two assists. . . . The Ice got a goal, his fourth, and an assist from F Barrett Sheen and two assists from F Vince Loschiavo. . . . F Evan Polei (9) and F Brandon Hagel (9) each had a goal and an assist for Red Deer, while D Austin Strand had two assists. . . . Polei was ejected at 1:06 of OT with a charging major and game misconduct after a hit on Ice G Payton Lee. . . . Lee stopped 38 shots for the victory. . . . Riley Lamb turned aside 34 for the Rebels. . . . Red Deer was 1-2 on the PP; Kootenay was 0-6. . . . The Ice (5-13-6) has lost its last two games (0-1-1). Kootenay is five points out of the Eastern Conference’s second wild-cart spot. . . . The Rebels now are 11-10-4. . . . Announced attendance: 1,506.
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At Portland, F Cody Glass scored twice to lead the Winterhawks to a 4-2 victory over the Edmonton Oil
CODY GLASS
Kings. . . . Glass has 35 points, including 12 goals, in 24 games. Last season, as a freshman, he finished with 27 points, 10 of them goals, in 65 games. . . . Glass scored the game’s first goal, at 8:04 of the first period. . . . Edmonton F Lane Bauer (12) tied it at 10:05. . . . Portland then took control with three straight goals. . . . Glass counted at 16:33 of the first and F Ryan Hughes got his 10th at 16:32 of the second. D Keoni Texeira (6) made it 4-1 at 3:51 of the third period. . . . Edmonton got its second goal from F Trey Fix-Wolansky (7) at 14:26 of the third. . . . Portland got three assists from F Keegan Iverson. . . . G Cole Kehler turned aside 22 shots for the Winterhawks, while Edmonton’s Patrick Dea blocked 36. . . . The Oil Kings were 1-6 on the PP; the Winterhawks were 0-5. . . . The Winterhawks (11-12-1) are 3-0-1 in their last four games. . . . The Oil Kings (10-12-2) have lost two in a row. They are 2-2-0 on a season-long seven-game road trip that continues Friday in Everett, Saturday in Spokane and ends Sunday afternoon in Cranbrook. . . . Announced attendance: 6,549.
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At Prince Albert, F Ryan Graham scored two goals to lead the Swift Current Broncos to a 3-1 victory over the Raiders. . . . Graham, who was acquired Sunday from Saskatoon, had a goal and three assists in his Broncos debut on Tuesday, a 5-1 victory over the visiting Blades. . . . Graham has four goals this season. He scored 37 seconds into the second period in this one. . . . F Cavin Leth (5) tied it at 12:14, on a PP. . . . Graham scored a PP goal at 12:10 of the third period and that one stood up as the winner. . . . D Max Lajoie (4) added an empty-netter at 19:43. . . . Lajoie also had an assist. . . . Last season, while with the Blades, Graham scored seven times against the Raiders. . . . G Taz Burman stopped 33 shots for the Broncos, while the Raiders got 28 saves out of Nic Sanders. . . . The Broncos were 1-3 on the PP; the Raiders were 1-7. . . . Swift Current (13-7-6) has points in each of its past three games (2-0-1). . . . The Raiders (5-17-1) have lost six in a row. . . . F Kolby Johnson and D Max Martin, acquired by the Raiders from the Prince George Cougars in a deal that had D Brendan Guhle go the other way, made their Prince Albert debuts. . . . Announced attendance: 1,901.
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At Kennewick, Wash., D Juuso Valimaki scored three goals, all in the third period, to help the Tri-City
JUUSU VALIMAKI
Americans to a 5-1 victory over the Vancouver Giants. . . . The Giants, who are 2-11-2 in their last 15 trips to Kennewick, took a 1-0 lead on F Tyler Popowich’s second goal at 3:11 of the first period. . . . Tri-City F Brett Leason tied it with his first goal, at 8:22. . . . F Tyler Sandhu gave his guys the lead with his fourth goal at 5:00 of the second period. Sandhu is riding a 10-game point streak. . . . Valimaki, who has nine goals, scored at 1:44, 8:22 and 11:21 of the third period for his first WHL hat trick. . . . Valimaki, a sophomore from Nokia, Finland, has nine goals and 20 assists in 25 games. He finished last season with seven goals and 25 assists in 56 games. . . . Tri-City F Kyle Olson had three assists. . . . Tri-City G Rylan Parenteau had a big night with 39 saves, 14 more than Vancouver’s Ryan Kubic. . . . Tri-City was 0-2 on the PP; Vancouver was 0-4. . . . The Americans (15-8-2) had lost their previous two games (0-1-1). They are 2-1-1 with five games left on a nine-game hometand. . . . The Giants (10-15-0) have lost three straight. . . . The same teams will meet in Kennewick again on Saturday. . . . Announced attendance: 2,854.
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THURSDAY’S GAMES (all times local):

No Games Scheduled.
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FRIDAY’S GAMES (all times local):

Moose Jaw at Calgary, 7 p.m.
Edmonton at Everett, 7:35 p.m.
Regina at Kamloops, 7 p.m.
Swift Current at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.
Victoria at Portland, 3 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.
Kootenay at Red Deer, 7 p.m.
Brandon at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.
Vancouver at Spokane, 7:05 p.m.
Seattle vs. Tri-City, at Kennewick, Wash., 7:05 p.m.

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Posted by Gregg Drinnan at 11:54 PM
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