The last time Malcolm Cameron coached against a Victoria hockey team, it was the Salmon Kings and he was behind the bench of the Long Beach Ice Dogs of the ECHL.
After nine seasons in the pro ECHL with the Ice Dogs, Texas Wildcatters and Florida Everblades, Cameron has become one of the big stories of the year in the Western Hockey League. Cameron’s successful first season at the helm of the Regina Pats continued Friday as the hosts defeated the Victoria Royals 3-2 before 3,782 fans at the Brandt Centre.
These haven’t been the best of times lately for the Pats. But there has been a pointed turnaround (33-22-6) under Cameron, for a franchise which has missed the playoffs four of the past five seasons. Regina improved to 6-0-1 in its last seven games.
The result ended several significant Victoria runs — its winning streak at seven, road winning streak at eight and overall unbeaten streak at 14. The Royals (42-17-4), ranked No. 10 in the Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll, are still 24-4-3 since Dec. 12.
It was the Royals’ fourth game in seven days but they didn’t hold that up as a reason for the rare-of-late stumble.
“We don’t make excuses,” said Lowry, whose club is in the midst of a seven-game road trip.
“If that [fatigue] was a factor, we wouldn’t have [pressed Regina goaltender and first-star Daniel Wapple].”
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The turning point was a two-man Victoria power play in a scoreless game late in the first period and to start the second period. The Royals failed to capitalize. Regina struck soon after getting back to full strength with third-round Washington Capitals draft-pick Chandler Stephenson burying his 28th goal of the season at 2:06 of the second period. The Pats didn’t squander their power-play chance later in the period when Dmitry Sinitsyn scored at 5:00. Colby Williams closed out the 3-0 middle period for Regina.
“We played well in the first and third periods but got away from our game in the second period,” said Lowry. “They [Pats] have some quality players and their goalie played well.”
The Royals fought back to within one in the third period on goals by Brandon Magee on the power play, with his team-leading 55th point of the season, and Austin Carroll, with his team-leading 32nd goal. Carroll finished with two points and was named second star.
Wapple made 31 saves. Coleman Vollrath, returning to the Victoria net following two starts by Patrik Polivka, made 24 saves.
Victoria concludes the five-game portion of its Eastern Division road swing tonight in Saskatoon against the lowly Blades (16-40-5).
