By Scott Fisher /

The Pats were a difficult team to figure out earlier in the season.
Doesn’t matter.
They appear to have figured things out themselves.
The Pats went into the final weekend of November riding a season-high four-game winning streak.
And it wasn’t just the number of wins. Equally impressive was how they did it, where they did it, and who they do it against.
They took the first three games on a six-game road trip, which included a shocking 7-1 beating of the Tri-City Americans, who had been a perfect 12-0 on home ice.
Pats head coach Curtis Hunt said his club would gain confidence for the big win overs the Americans.
“We are judged by our results,” Hunt told the Tri-City Herald. “We have played well on the road, we just haven’t gotten the results we wanted. We are starting to finish. This is a good win against a first-place team and that’s good for our morale.”
They followed that victory up by doubling up the Portland Winterhawks 6-3.
And they did it without Team Canada world junior veterans Jordan Eberle and Colten Teubert, who were suiting up for Team WHL against the Russians in the Super Series.
The win over the ’Hawks proved the Pats can be successful without Eberle, who has carried the offence this season.
When Eberle left to join Team WHL, he was one point of the league scoring lead with 20 goals and 46 points.
The emergence of veteran right-winger Brett Leffler has taken some of the offensive pressure off Eberle.
With a dozen markers through his first 24 games, Leffler hadn’t gone more than two tilts without hitting the scoresheet.
He credited his increased playing time on the second line for his boost in production.
“You can’t have just one line going in this league,” the 19-year-old Wynyardm Sask.-product told the Leader-Post.
“I think, in the past, maybe we’ve only had one line, but the bounces are going our way (now). This game is all about confidence. If you have it, you’re obviously going to believe in yourself and perform and try things that maybe you wouldn’t do without
your confidence.”
Leffler missed five of the first seven games of the season — two while attending camp with the Washington Capitals and three more with a concussion.
But he now sits third and team scoring.
And he’s done while maintaining his hard-nosed style of play. Leffler’s 78 penalty minutes leads the club.
Pats assistant coach Terry Perkins knows a thing or two about lighting the lamp. He said Leffler is willing to whatever it takes to dent the twine.
“He has kind of found a bit of a home in front of that net,“ Perkins, who scored 71 goals in the 1985/86 WHL season, told the Leader-Post. “It’s not how you score, it’s how many you score.
“I scored more goals around the crease and rebounds and different things, just shooting pucks quickly, half the time with my eyes closed. You just have to get them away. Brett is learning to do that.
“We’ve really tried to get it in his mind that he doesn’t need to carry the puck a lot. Guys like that just need to find a way to get open, be available and shoot quick. He’s getting better and better at that.”