With nine of their last 11 games on the road, the Kootenay Ice could use a break.

They finished off their most recent away jaunt with a pair of losses: 4-0 to the Brandon Wheat Kings on Friday and 5-4 in an overtime stunner against the Regina Pats Saturday.

“I think we just need a little rest to play like we did about a month ago,” said assistant coach Kris Knoblauch, whose club is 4-2-2 since its 12-game win streak ended.

“We’ve played a lot of hockey and we’ve traveled quite a bit. It’s going to catch up to you. We play again Tuesday (against the Moose Jaw Warriors, at the Rec Plex), not much of a break having just arrived Sunday morning.

“Of course we want a little more jump, to be more physical, but (consider) how many miles we’ve put on in the last three weeks — we’ve gone to Saskatchewan twice, all the way to Spokane, we haven’t had many home games. When you consider the elements the guys have been fighting, they’ve done a really good job.”

They had the elements in their favour Saturday, with Jesse Ismond’s hat trick helping give the Ice a 4-2 lead until Regina mounted a comeback late in the game.

“We played a really good game for about 58 minutes, and the last two minutes we made a couple of mistakes that resulted in goals,” said Knoblauch. “It’s too bad. They played so well, and to come up short like that — 3-1-1 is still a pretty good road trip, but 4-1 would have been really nice.”

Knoblauch said Kootenay did a good job of shutting Regina down in the third period, with the Pats happening to score on their first chances of the frame.

The comeback started after the Pats rimmed the puck through Kootenay’s zone.

“Instead of breaking that puck out, we just let them have it. About 10 seconds later, it results in a goal,” said Knoblauch, referring to Cody Carlson’s fifth of the year.

“On the tying goal, our defenceman’s got it and instead of getting that puck out or passing to his partner and getting the puck out, he tries a flip pass that he fans on, which we never do. We did it in the last minute and it resulted in a goal.”

Jordan Eberle has a nose for the dramatic goal, and played his part with 56 seconds left and his goalie on the bench.

In overtime, Knoblauch said the Ice took too-long shifts, resulting in a turnover to Eberle. He fed to Mitch Spooner who put it away.

The Pats were pretty happy to avoid a shootout: they had lost three games in a row in one-on-one sessions, starting last Monday against the Ice.

Ismond had opened scoring with the first period’s only goal.

Dustin Sylvester put a shorthanded Kootenay up 2-0 seven minutes into the middle period.

Carter Ashton made it 2-1 seconds after a Regina power play expired, and Andrew Rieder scored three minutes later to tie the game.

Ismond gave Kootenay a 3-2 lead by the intermission, benefiting from some tough forechecking by Matt Fraser and Max Reinhart.

Fraser set up Ismond’s hat trick goal eight minutes into the third, giving the Ice the two-goal lead they would eventually watch dissolve.

Knoblauch said the Ice had shown more forward depth than the Pats, with all lines getting chances. Earlier in the road trip that hadn’t happened.

Against Brandon, for example, they generated 16 shots — and a season-low two in the final frame. The Ice had their hands full, having to kill nine penalties.

“We were killing a lot, so we didn’t have the advantage of playing 5-on-5,” said Knoblauch.

“Defensively, I think that was a really good game from our team. We’re playing against the best offensive team in the league for goals scored (4.26 per game), and we didn’t give them very much. It was just a couple of mistakes, and they had nine power plays. They didn’t have a whole lot of shots for the circumstances.”

Aaron Lewadniuk, Brayden Schenn, Scott Glennie (two-man advantage) and Alexander Urbom scored for Brandon. The Wheat Kings got 32 shots on Todd Mathews.

Jacob De Serres became only the second goalie to beat the Ice with a shutout this season.

Overworked penalty kill aside, the Ice suffered offensively by not getting the biscuit deep in Brandon’s zone, and by passing up opportunities to shoot.

“We were maybe looking for the nice goal rather than the dirty one,” said Knoblauch.

“The past half month, there have been a lot of guys who haven’t scored goals. Rather than doing the easy stuff, you’re thinking you’ve got to change it up to score. I think that was the mentality.”