‘It was really bad:’ Pats lay an egg against Vancouver

If the Friday night Pat’s game was one of the best of the year, Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Giants was one of the worst.

Head coach John Paddock said the effort from his team just wasn’t there.

“You cannot watch the game where I was standing or where you were sitting and believe that they tried. There are some really bad nights sometimes, and it appeared like we didn’t try … it was really bad,” he said after the game was over.

The Giants jumped out to an early lead, putting a goal on the board just two minutes and 25 seconds into the period and didn’t really let up from there.

Though the Pats gave them plenty of opportunities from bad passes to breakaway chances, the team just didn’t seem to have a spark.

“We got beat to every loose puck, lost every battle,” Paddock said.

“I don’t think it happened once tonight, I don’t remember us having a good stick on the puck and stripping it and going the other way. We were always chasing the game.”

Paddock himself couldn’t explain what happened between Friday night and Saturday night, but said to ask Sam Steel or Matt Bradley.

Steel, the team captain couldn’t explain it either.

“Sometimes it’s just tough to explain. Sometimes you have those nights, that we never want to have, with the lack of effort and that’s what it was tonight. We’re going to have to look at it and fix what went wrong,” he said.

The Giants put a second goal on the board by the end of the first period and the Pats trailed by two going into the first intermission.

The Pats managed to keep the Giants off the board in the second and score one of their own, courtesy of Emil Oksanen, but the third period went back to Vancouver’s favour.

The Giants put in two more goals to the Pats one – a shorthanded, unassisted goal by Braydon Buziak – but it was too little too late.

With the final minutes ticking down, goaltender Max Paddock was pulled for the extra attacker, but Ty Ronning scored an empty-netter with two minutes left to put the final nail in the coffin.

The Pats didn’t do much to help their goaltender out either – Paddock faced 50 shots in the game – and Coach Paddock was not impressed.

“We were watching. The last time we gave up that many shots on goal was last year,” he said.

“We were just standing skating around, looking for someone else to do it. Looking for an easy way. Like we wanted an easy game … that’s how it all appeared that we wanted an easy game (to) not have to work to get it,” Paddock added.

The loss snaps the Pats four-game winning streak just as they head out on the road for a four game stretch.

The Pats are next in action on Tuesday against Kootenay.