Pats lay a beat down on the Blades, extend win streak to 8

The Pats winning streak was extended to eight games after a 9-6 win over the Saskatoon Blades, but it wasn’t the scoring that caught everyone’s attention, it was the fighting.

A line brawl broke out late in the third period after a Connor Hobbs laid a hit on one of the Blades players. Fights continued to break out through to the end of the period.

“I don’t have an opinion on it at all,” head coach John Paddock said after the game is over. “You used to be able to say it’s part of the game. It’s a part of the game that not there anymore but, you know it happened. Maybe they wanted to entertain the fans some more.”

Pats Captain Adam Brooks said fights like that sometimes happen when tempers flare on the ice, and he’s proud that his team stuck together like they did.

“Guys are sticking up for each other and you can’t ask more for a really tight team,” Brooks said. “Guys will go through the wall for each other and that’s what a good team does.”

And the Pats are a good team. They’ve scor 19 goals in their last two games. They went up 6-2 after the first period before things got a little sloppy in the second and the Blades were able to bring it within two goals. It would be the closest the Blades would get to winning all game. The Pats went on to shake off the cobwebs during the second intermission and score two more goals to the Blades one in the third.

Sam Steel and Filip Ahl both had another two goal night while Chase Harrison, Jake Leschyshyn, Austin Wagner, Dawson Leedal and Brooks each got one.

“(The goals) show that we’re … (a) very talented team offensively,” Brooks said, with one caveat. “We got to match that a defensively and obviously can’t give up six goals.”

“We’re not too cocky we know that teams are going to give us their best and know we have to play our best if we want to keep going.”

The Pats have not had an eight game winning streak since the 2001-02 season.

They’ll look to make it nine in a row when they face Moose Jaw on Thursday.