CHILLIWACK, B.C. -- It was a tough finish to the round robin for the Regina Pat Canadians at the Telus Cup male U18 national hockey championship on Friday afternoon.
Taking the ice in a first-place showdown with the Quebec champion Chevaliers de Levis, the Pat Cs would give up four goals in the first period and go on to an 6-2 defeat to close out the preliminary round at the six-team event in Chilliwack, B.C.
As a result, Regina will finish with a 4-1-0-0 record and in second place in the standings, setting up a semifinal matchup Saturday with their opponent and time to be determined by outcomes later Friday.
After turning in a handful of commanding wins in their previous games, absolutely nothing went right for Regina against the Chevaliers, especially in the early going.
Charles-Albert Pouliot opened scoring only 3:07 into the game, and by the time the contest was six minutes old, Levis had built a 3-0 lead.
Pouliot scored his second of the game 50 seconds after his first, and Felix Grenier made it a three goal lead with 5:27 gone in the opening frame.
The Chevaliers weren’t done there, either, as Malyk Cote increased their edge to 4-0 with 2:18 left in the first.
The Pat Canadians power play came through midway through the second thanks to a goal from Logan Mehl -- his third of the tournament -- and that marker at 9:03 would stand as the lone goal of the period.
Brandon Delarosbil then extended Levis’ lead to 5-1 with 7:25 gone in the third, and it was essentially academic for the Chevaliers through the remainder of regulation.
Ryan Ulmer got one back for Regina to make it a three-goal contest with 8:38 to play, and a late major penalty to Levis gave the Pat Canadians a bit of hope, but Charles-Antoine Dube would score a short-handed empty netter with 1:16 remaining in the contest.
Maddox Schultz picked up two assists and capped the round robin as the tournament scoring leader with eight goals and 16 points over the five games.
In fact, heading into the final two round robin games of the day, Pat Canadians players held down four of the top five scorers in the tournament -- Schultz, Eli Johnson (2-9-11), Jonah Sivertson (4-5-9) making up the top three, Chase Surkan (0-8-9) in fifth -- with nine players from the Chevaliers in the top 13 and players from the two teams making up 19 of the top 20 scorers.
Adam Muntain finished with 19 saves for Regina in his second appearance of the tournament, while Ryan Gagne had 20 stops for Levis.
The Chevaliers finished with a 5-0 record and will face the fourth place team in the semifinal on Saturday afternoon, while Regina will take on whoever finishes third. Those games will take place at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saskatchewan time.
The semifinal losers will play for bronze at 12 p.m. on Sunday, while the semifinal winners will go for gold at 4 p.m., with that contest being broadcast on TSN.
You can keep up to date with the scores from the remainder of the tournament at .
