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| Netminder Nolan Maier is currently the Blades biggest star. |
The Blades had a remarkable campaign last season finishing
fourth in the entire WHL with a 45-15-8 mark, and they advanced to the second round
of the WHL playoffs. In the second round, they fell 4-2 in a best-of-seven
series to their archrivals and eventual WHL champion Prince Albert Raiders.
Over the course of the off-season, their roster got shuffled
a little too much. Due to that fact alone, expectations for the Blades have to
be tempered during the early part of the campaign besides the fact the team’s
roster will still shuffle a little over the next few weeks.
The fact the Blades were rated third in the pre-season WHL
Top 10 rankings on Sept. 18 was way too high.
The roster shuffle is one of the reasons the Blades are 3-3
over their first six games of the current campaign.
 |
| Head coach Mitch Love tried to temper early expectations for the Blades. |
All that rating was good for was for giving Priestner and
the Blades organization a tip of the cap for building a club that had the
season it did in 2018-19.
The Blades weren’t like the Raiders of last year, who
entered that campaign with a strong core group of returning players.
When you look at the changes the Blades had on defence,
those changes alone should have prevented them from being ranked.
Gone from their regular starting six were Dawson Davidson,
Brandon Schuldhaus, Reece Harsch and Emil Malysjev. Davidson and Schuldhaus
were lost due to overage graduation.
Harsch is now in his overage season, and the Blades traded
him to the Winnipeg Ice early in May expecting Malysjev to be back.
The Blades
were expecting to reload their back end around Malysjev, who elected in June to
play professionally back home in Sweden.
 |
| Scott Walford is a stable presence on the Blades defence. |
Priestner did an admirable job filling the holes in the back
end. He picked up Czech products Libor Zabransky and Radek Kucerik in the CHL
Import Draft. Zabransky had played in 109 regular season games with the Kelowna
Rockets over two seasons.
The Blades general manager was able to add overage offensive-defenceman
Scott Walford in a trade with the Victoria Royals.
Saskatoon returned Nolan Kneen as an overager on the back
end along with Aiden De La Gorgendiere and Majid Kaddoura. Both De La Gorgendiere
and Kaddoura were rookies last season, and it is expected they will take big
steps forward in their respective games this season.
With that in mind, the group on defence needs time to find
chemistry with each other.
Of course, the biggest the loss the Blades have at the
moment is 18-year-old centre Kirby Dach.
Dach was drafted in the first round
and third overall by the Chicago Blackhawks last June and signed to an NHL
Entry Level contract.
 |
| Kirby Dach has been the Blades biggest missing piece. |
Dach is still with the Blackhawks, and he had been
undergoing concussion protocol after being on the receiving end of a dirty hit
at a rookie tournament in Traverse City, Mich.
The fact Dach isn’t back with the Blades has been a big blow
for the team. It is likely the high pre-season ranking was given to the Blades
partially on the assumption Dach would be back in Saskatoon.
Another blow was losing sharpshooting right-winger Max
Gerlach to overage graduation.
The Blades turned heads when they elected to trade high-scoring
right-winger Ryan Hughes to the Kamloops Blazers to get down to the league
limit of three overage players. In making that move, the Blades elected to keep
feisty left-winger Riley McKay, who is best known as an agitator and a pest and
has shown flashes in producing offence.
McKay is well respected in the Blades dressing room and is
looked upon as one of the team’s leaders.
Ultimately, it was the right decision
to keep McKay, because the Blades needed his toughness and intangibles to play in
a physical East Division.
 |
| The Blades elected to keep feisty Riley McKay as one of three overagers. |
McKay appeared in all of the Blades 68 regular season games
in 2018-19 collecting 12 goals, 17 assists and a plus-16 rating in the plus-minus
department to go with a league high 149 penalty minutes.
He has the potential to be a better offensive player than
most people outside the Blades would have thought. McKay has two goals, two assists
and is a plus-five in his first five appearances this season, and my gut
feeling believes that is going to continue.
McKay has earned his spot to be on the team.
The Blades have a forward group that can deliver the goods
offensively in captain Chase Wouters, Eric Florchuk, Kyle Crnkovic, Colton
Dach, Tristen Robins and Kyle McNabb.
All these players need time to adjust to new roles.
They are not yet a veteran scoring forward crew like the
Raiders had last season or the Swift Current Broncos had, when they won the WHL
title in 2017-18.
 |
| The Blades will lean on Kyle Crnkovic for more offence. |
On that front, the Blades shouldn’t have been rated third in
the CHL pre-season rankings.
One spot the Blades are secure in is the fact they have
18-year-old veteran Nolan Maier starting in goal. He is a true star starting
franchise netminder and one of the best puck stoppers in the league.
He will allow the Blades time to adjust and grow.
On Friday playing against the Raiders in Prince Albert, the
Blades showed they still have the heart and character to gut games out that
start out adversely.
Raiders star right-winger Ozzy Wiesblatt scored at the 1:52
mark of the first period to give the host side a 1-0 lead in front of 2,687
spectators at the 2,580 seat Art Hauser Centre.
De La Gorgendiere scored on the power play to tie things up
at 1-1 at the 6:21 mark of the opening frame.
From that point, the Raiders threw everything including the
kitchen sink at Maier, who stood his ground.
The game went to overtime and Walford and McKay team up to
set up Wouters to score the winner. Maier made 36 saves to pick up the victory.
 |
| Overage defenceman Nolan Kneen (#27) is a key returnee from last season. |
Back in the 2010-11 campaign when the Blades were still owned
by Jack Brodsky, they were battling for first overall in the WHL. The Blades
made a monster deal to acquire local product and star forward Brayden Schenn
from the Brandon Wheat Kings.
It was perceived that the Blades would win the Memorial Cup
that season with Schenn on their roster. The Blades topped the WHL standings
with a franchise best 56-13-1-2 record. When they were swept 4-0 by the
eventual WHL champion Kootenay Ice in the second round of the playoffs, there
was a fan backlash at the time against Schenn.
It also seemed like the playoff exit in that campaign was
held against the team for an extended time.
 |
| Aidan De La Gorgendiere will see more time on the back end. |
Now under the ownership of Mike Priestner with his son,
Colin, as the general manager, the Blades management and coaches are prudent in
any efforts they make to temper high expectations.
In the pre-season CHL rankings, the Edmonton Oil Kings were
rated eighth, the Vancouver Giants were placed 10th and the Calgary
Hitmen were an honourable mention.
All three of those WHL teams had strong returning groups and
should have been rated higher than the Blades. On top of that, the Giants fell
in the WHL final last season, and the Oil Kings bowed out in the WHL’s Eastern
Conference Championship series.
The Blades continue their journey in the current campaign,
when they host the Brandon Wheat Kings (2-4) at 4 p.m. Sunday at the SaskTel
Centre.
By the end of the season, the Blades might become a team
that should be rated high in the CHL Top 10 rankings.
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| The Blades are still a work in progress in the current campaign. |
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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