Blades stun Royals with comeback OT win

Fasko-Rudas gets natural Hatty, Wouters extra time winner

Chase Wouters, right, celebrates scoring the OT winner for the Blades.

    A newcomer and the captain put on their superhero capes to save the Saskatoon Blades.
    Training the visiting Victoria Royals 2-0 early in the third period of a WHL regular season game on Tuesday night, Blades received a natural hat trick from Slovakian import right-winger Martin Fasko-Rudas to jump ahead 3-2.

    Fasko-Rudas was acquired a short time ago by the Blades in a deal with the Swift Current Broncos right before the WHL trade deadline on Jan. 10.

    After the surge of goals from Fasko-Rudas, the Royals battled back to force overtime with former Blades right-winger Gary Haden netting the equalizer to force a 3-3 tie with 7:43 remaining in the third period.

Chase Wouters has three OT winners for the Blades this season.

    Just 36 seconds into overtime, Blades captain Chase Wouters received a pass from right-winger Kyle Crnkovic in front of the Victoria goal. Wouters roofed a shot to the top right corner of the Royals goal to give the Blades a 4-3 victory in front of 3,020 spectators at the SaskTel Centre.

    The marker was Wouters third overtime winner and fifth game-winner of the campaign.

    “It was pretty cool,” said Wouters, who had an assist to go with his goal. “It was the first one I’ve gotten on home ice besides that playoff one there.

    “It was really a cool experience for sure.”

    Wouters’ playoff overtime winner came in March of last year, when the Blades downed the Moose Jaw Warriors 3-2 in Game 1 of a best-of-seven first round series at the SaskTel Centre. The Blades would go on to sweep that series 4-0.

    Since that post-season overtime winner, Wouters has made a habit of scoring goals in overtime.

Martin Fasko-Rudas had a natural hat trick for the Blades on Tuesday.

    Blades head coach Mitch Love was pleased to see Wouters get his latest overtime winner. While Wouters had goals in four of his last six games, he was held scoreless in the Blades previous two outings, and Love said his captain had strong efforts but wasn’t rewarded.

    The bench boss decided to start Wouters in overtime due to another attribute and hoped a goal would result.

    “Honestly when Chase (Wouters) gets out there in overtime, it is usually to win that first faceoff, because the puck possession is so important,” said Love. “He is usually pretty good at it.

    “For him to get rewarded there, I know he has been a little bit snakebitten of late offensively. That was a big goal for him. Hopefully, that will rally him up here to kind of stay hot.”

Gary Haden had the third period equalizer for the Royals.

    The teams played through a scoreless opening period, where the Royals held a slim 10-9 edge in shots on goal. Both teams did have their chances in the first 20 minutes.

    Early in the frame, Blades rookie right-winger Colton Dach had a golden chance to score from the left slot, but he fired a shot over top of the net.

    Late in the frame, Royals star centre Brayden Tracey tried to score on a wraparound, but he was denied by Blades rookie netminder Koen MacInnes.

    The visitors broke through at the 5:14 mark of the second period, when Royals captain Phillip Schultz scored gritty goal in front of the Saskatoon net to give his side a 1-0 lead.

    The Blades had a glorious chance to even things up late in the second, but rookie 16-year-old centre Jayden Wiens was stoned close in.

    The Royals expanded their edge to 2-0 with a power-play goal coming off the stick of import right-winger Keanu Derungs. 

Captain Phillip Schultz scored in the second period for the Royals.

    Derungs took a backdoor pass at the right side of the Blades goal from linemate Brandon Cutler.
    Just when things looked down, Fasko-Rudas gave the Blades a spark.

    The 19-year-old fired home a natural hat trick in a span of two minutes and 20 seconds with the finally tally of the surge coming at the 8:33 mark of the third. The surge helped the Blades jump ahead on the scoreboard 3-2.

    At the 6:13 mark of third, he sniped home an even-strength goal from the left slot. At the 7:45 mark, Fasko-Rudas tallied his second marker on a two-man advantage converting a backdoor pass at the left side of the Victoria goal that came from defenceman Scott Walford.

    At the 8:33 mark of the third, the Slovakian netted his third goal on the remaining one-man advantage to give the Blades a one-goal edge after taking a smart in close pass from Crnkovic.

Martin Fasko-Rudas (#17) fires home his hat trick goal.

    Fasko-Rudas said he couldn’t ever remember a moment when goals went into the net that fast for him.

    “It happened to me first time,” said Fasko-Rudas. “I have to thank my teammates for great passes and great help.

    “I’m really happy for those goals.”

    Wouters almost couldn’t believe how fast the goals went into the net for Fasko-Rudas.

    “It was really exciting,” said Wouters, who leads the WHL with 625 faceoff wins. “He turned it on there for us.

    “Those were some big goals in the game for sure. It was good.”

    After Fasko-Rudas put the Blades in the lead, that set the stage for Haden to score for the Royals and force overtime and for Wouters to win it in the extra session.
    Fasko-Rudas was pumped to see his club bounce back after the Royals tied the game.

Kyle Crnkovic had three assists in the Blades win on Tuesday.

    “It was a hell of a job from the team and from the guys,” said Fasko-Rudas. “It was great that we didn’t quit, and we came back.”

    MacInnes stopped 28 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Blades (24-19-2-2). Crnkovic finished with three assists in the win.
    Adam Evanoff turned away 28 shots to take the extra time setback goal for the Royals (25-17-4).

    Love said Tuesday’s game was a big character win for his club as the Blades elected to scratch their leading scorer in centre Tristen Robins moments before warm-ups due to illness.

    “It was pretty gutsy,” said Love. “We looked pretty fatigued through 40 minutes.
    “Our execution offensively wasn’t quite there. Credit to the guys, they really stuck with it. We knew we had to really press in the third to try and generate any sort of offence against a very good defensive team.

The Blades mob Chase Wouters after his OT winner on Tuesday.

    “We generated some power plays, and that was going well for us tonight. It is a gutsy win for us.”

    The Blades are back in action on Friday when they travel to Moose Jaw to face the Warriors (7 p.m., Mosaic Place). Love expects Robins will be ready to go for that contest.

    The Royals return to action on Wednesday when they venture to Prince Albert to face the Raiders (7 p.m., Art Hauser Centre).

    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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Blades rally past Warriors in playoff type tilt

Two sides will collide in first round of WHL post-season

The Blades and Warriors engage in a third period scrum.

    It was a game that had a bit of everything including a post-season feel.

    On Sunday, the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors took on the Saskatoon Blades before 4,454 spectators at the SaskTel Centre in the final regular season clash between the two sides. The two clubs will meet in a best-of-seven WHL first round playoff series once the regular season concludes.

    As for Sunday’s clash, the Warriors held leads of 2-0 and 3-1 only to see the Blades close things out with four consecutive goals to pull out a 5-3 victory.

Max Gerlach scored his 40th goal of the season on Sunday.

    Saskatoon won five out of the six head-to-head encounters with Moose Jaw in the regular season.

    Along with the Blades posting a comeback win, Sunday’s contest featured a stopped penalty shot, some chippy play, trash talking and a post-game standoff. The standoff occurred right after the Blades gave a salute to the crowd.

    Most of the Warriors players hadn’t left their bench yet, and they were yelling at the players on the Saskatoon side. The Blades players formed a line on the ice and fired verbal barbs back at the Moose Jaw side.

    The officials ultimately ushered both clubs to their respective dressing rooms.

    The win was the seventh in a row for the Blades allowing them to improve to 44-14-8. Saskatoon has won 14 out of its last 15 games and is 28-5-3 since last Dec. 1. 

Tristin Langan scored his 50th goal of the season on Sunday.

    The Warriors fell to 37-20-6-2 with the setback.

    While the Blades have piled up the wins, standout left-winger “Uncle” Gary Haden said posting a comeback win over Moose Jaw was important for his team.

    “It was big for sure,” said Haden. “Being down two goals twice in the game, it is not wanted obviously.

    “We didn’t get off to the start we wanted either. I think it showed good resiliency battling back against a team we are going to meet in the first round and hopefully setting a tone for the first round of playoffs.”

    The Warriors jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period with goals coming off the sticks of 16-year-old rookie defenceman Daemon Hunt and overage star centre Tristin Langan.

    Saskatoon had a chance to score on a penalty shot from rookie left-winger Kyle Crnkovic, when the Warriors were up 1-0, but the Chestermere, Alta., product was stopped by Warriors netminder Brodan Salmond.

    With the post-season just around the corner, Blades head coach Mitch Love was curious to see how his side would respond to the jump the Warriors got on the scoreboard in the opening 20 minutes.

Justin Almeida had a beauty assist on the Warriors third goal.

    “The one thing that we talked about after the first period was going down 2-0 is we’re going to be faced with this here in a couple of weeks for real,” said Love. “I was kind interested in the character in terms of just staying to the plan and staying the course.

    “It is something that we talked about all the time. Our guys did a real good job of that tonight.”

    The Blades broke through on the scoreboard, when overage star right-winger Max Gerlach wired home a shot at the 12:03 mark of the second period to cut the Warriors lead to 2-1. Gerlach’s goal came during a span of four-on-four action due to penalties.

    Just 20 seconds later, Langan one-timed a setup pass from linemate Justin Almeida to give the visitors a 3-1 lead during that same span of four-on-four action.

Dawson Davidson scores a key power-play goal for the Blades.

    Momentum swung again just over three minutes later. The Blades were about to go on a two-man advantage for 33 seconds, and club’s coaching staff called a timeout to draw up a play for an offensive zone faceoff.

    On that faceoff, Haden won the draw to linemate Ryan Hughes, who got the puck over to offensive defenceman Dawson Davidson. Davidson sniped home a mid-range shot to cut the Warriors lead to 3-2.

    “I told Hughesy to help me on the draw, because I was going against (Tristin) Langan,” said Haden. “I just said, ‘Hey, I’m going to try and tie him up. I just don’t want to lose it clean.’

    “I kind of won it, and he (Hughes) poked it to Davy (Davidson). Davy made it all look easy, and I will take that assist anytime.”

    After killing off a Warriors power play early in the third period, the Blades evened things up at 3-3, when a pass from Gerlach was deflected into the Moose Jaw goal by Haden off an offensive rush. The tally was Haden’s 30^th goal of the season marking the first time he hit that plateau in his WHL career.

The Blades celebrate Gary Haden’s 30th goal of the season.

    “It is super cool,” said Haden. “Obviously, I didn’t come into this year thinking I was going to score 30.

    “I just wanted to play consistent hockey. You have to give my linemates credit. I couldn’t have done it without them.

    “Hopefully, there is a lot more to come this year.”

    Love thought Davidson’s power-play goal and Haden’s equalizer after a successful penalty kill were key moments in Sunday’s game.

    “We talked about the special teams being a factor in regular season play and it was again tonight,” said Love. “I thought our penalty kill to start the third period was huge.

    “Going down 4-2 versus getting through there down 3-2 and staying the course and getting some goals to happen right after that kill was huge in the hockey game.”

Gary Haden scored twice for the Blades on Sunday.

    The Blades took a 4-3 lead at the 5:24 mark of the third when overage defenceman Brandon Schuldhaus passed the puck from the point down to Gerlach, who was open in close at the right side of the Moose Jaw net. Gerlach sniped home his second of the contest and 40^th of the season to give the Blades their one-goal edge.

    Gerlach had scored 30-or-more goals in each of his first three seasons in the league, but Sunday marked the first time he hit the 40-goal plateau in one campaign.

    “That obviously felt really good,” said Gerlach. “You want to do as best as you can for the team to help them win.

    “Obviously, I think those were two really big goals - one to get us started and then one to kind of seal things off there. I was obviously really excited about that. Any way I can help the team I feel great about it.”

    Looking to shake things up, the Warriors coaches pulled Salmond after Gerlach’s go-ahead goal. Salmond actually had a strong night turning away 36-of-40 shots sent his way.

Blades captain Chase Wouters (#44) battles past the Warriors defence.

    Adam Evanoff played the rest of the way in relief turning away all nine shots he faced.

    Haden scored into an empty net with 55.4 seconds remaining in the third period to seal with win for the Blades.

    Nolan Maier made 21 saves to pick up the win in goal for Saskatoon.

    The Warriors travel to Brandon on Wednesday to face the Wheat Kings at 7 p.m. local time at Westoba Place.

    The Blades close out their regular season schedule with a home-and-home series with their archrivals the Prince Albert Raiders. The two sides meet on Friday at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre. They go at it again on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.

Blades C Kirby Dach eludes Warriors D Dalton Hamaliuk.

    The Blades and Warriors open their playoff series on March 22 at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre. Love said the Blade 5-1 record against the Warriors in the regular season won’t mean anything when the post-season starts.

    “Everything is out the door now against those guys,” said Love. “We start from scratch.

    “It is going to be a grind. It was a grinding game. I think they started to fatigue playing three games in three nights.

    “We had the game last night against Swift Current, so we had a little more juice. That is a good hockey team over there, and we are going to have to be really, really sharp with details to stop that group.”

The Blades salute the SaskTel Centre crowd after their win on Sunday.

    NOTES - Blades rookie defenceman Aiden De La Gorgendiere left the second period of Sunday’s game with an upper body injury. He is expected to undergo further evaluations on Monday.

    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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Blades wipe out Warriors 6-1

The Blades celebrate a power-play goal from Brandon Schuldhaus.

    It seems Jack Frost might have been a tougher adversary for the Saskatoon Blades than the Moose Jaw Warriors were over the last 24 hours.

    In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Blades returned to the SaskTel Centre after thumping the Wheat Kings in Brandon 7-3 on Tuesday night. Fighting temperatures that were well below -30 C, the Blades players, coaches and staff members got their vehicles going to head home to rest up for what was expected to be an intense tilt about 13 hours later with Moose Jaw.

    The Blades didn’t show any signs of fatigue when they returned Wednesday night to the SaskTel Centre for that night’s WHL regular season clash.

Kirby Dach had two assists for the Blades on Wednesday night.

    Before 3,281 spectators, they dismantled the visiting Warriors 6-1 holding an impressive 48-20 edge in shots on goal.

    With the win, the Blades improved to 32-13-8 to remain fourth overall in the WHL standings, while the Warriors fell to 28-13-6-2 to remain seventh overall on the circuit.

    “It was a big win for our hockey club, especially after last night’s travel arrangements coming home,” said Blades head coach Mitch Love. “Guys didn’t get back to their billets until about 5:30 in the morning, especially when a few cars didn’t start.

    “It was a little bit of adversity there, but it was a great effort up and down our lineup from everybody. We knew the importance of the game and found a way.”

Dawson Davidson had a goal and two assists for the Blades.

    The Blades stormed the Warriors in the opening 20 minutes outshooting the visitors 21-5. The host side took a 1-0 lead at the 9:46 mark of the opening frame, when 16-year-old rookie left-winger Kyle Crnkovic fired home a goal from the right side of the Moose Jaw net converting a backdoor feed from offensive defenceman Dawson Davidson.

    With 11.1 seconds to play in the first period, Blades captain Chase Wouters banged home a gritty goal on the power play from the front of the Moose Jaw goal to put Saskatoon up 2-0.

    “The Bridge City Bunch” kept the foot on the gas pedal at the start of the second. Just 54 seconds into the frame, speedy right-winger Ryan Hughes slipped a backhander past Warriors netminder Adam Evanoff to give the Blades a 3-0 advantage with his 20^th goal of the campaign.

Ryan Hughes picked up his 20th goal of the season on Wednesday night.

    “Anytime you can end the period with a goal and start a period with a goal, it is huge,” said Hughes. “Knowing from experience that happening against, it takes the wind right out of you.

    “That was good there in the first and the second.”

    The Warriors tried to stop the bleeding at the 12:53 of the second, when star left-winger Justin Almeida potted a power-play goal for his 21^st tally of the season.

    Any thoughts of a comeback were dashed with 1:49 remaining in the second, when Davidson scored a power-play goal off an offensive zone rush to put the Blades up 4-1. Davidson converted a beauty drop pass from high energy left-winger Riley McKay to give the host side a three-goal edge.

Blades captain Chase Wouters fights for a loose puck.

    Davidson finished the night posting a goal, two assists and a plus-one rating in the plus-minus department. The Moosomin, Sask., product has recorded points in his last 11 straight games piling two goals and 15 assists over that span of time.

    “It has been a good little run here,” said Davidson. “I’ve just been playing my game.

    “I haven’t been worried about it. I think that is something that can to players when they get on these streaks. I know I’ve gotten on a couple in the past, and I started kind of thinking about it a little bit.

    “It has gotten in my head where I feel like right now I’m just kind of playing my game and letting things come.”

    Overage right-winger Max Gerlach wired home a power-play goal for his 32^nd marker of the campaign and overage rearguard Brandon Schuldhaus hammered home a power-play goal of his own to round out the Blades scoring in the third.

Warriors D Jett Woo and Blades RW Kristian Roykas-Marthinsen scrum it up.

    Nolan Maier turned away 19 shots in goal for the Blades. Adam Evanoff stopped 42 shots in goal for the Warriors.

    Crnkovic had helpers on the final two Saskatoon goals to finish the contest with a three-point night. Veteran defenceman Nolan Kneen had a pair of assists for the Blades.

    Wednesday’s encounter included some rough stuff as the final result was well in hand. With 3:20 remaining in the third and the Blades holding a 5-1 lead, Warriors defenceman Jett Woo took a run at Blades star sophomore centre Kirby Dach well before an intended pass got to where Dach was on the ice.

    Woo nailed Dach starting a scrum. The Warriors rearguard received a major penalty for charging on the play which will automatically trigger a review by the WHL office for a possible suspension.

Nolan Kneen had a pair of assists for the Blades.

    Dach, who picked up two assists on Wednesday, finished the game and didn’t look any worse for wear during a postgame media scrum. He thought everyone on his team played well and was pleased to see 11 different players on the Blades pick up points.

    “There are going to be games where your top offensive players aren’t going to be able to produce every night,” said Dach. “You need that secondary scoring, and that is going to help you out in the long run.”

    Dach was proud of how his team played on a short turnaround after returning early Wednesday morning from Brandon.

Ryan Hughes gives a stick to a young fan at the end of Wednesday’s game.

    “Obviously, it was pretty good to get that good start,” said Dach. “We got home late from Brandon 5:30 to 6 in the morning.

    “We got our rest. We got a good meal in us at around noon. We had our naps, and we came to the rink ready to play.

    “I think we put the league on notice that we are there to stay, and we’re a good team.”

    The Blades return to action on Saturday when they travel to Swift Current to take on the Broncos at 5 p.m. at the Innovation Credit Union i-Plex.

    The Warriors hit the ice again on Friday when they travel to Lethbridge to take on the Hurricanes at 7 p.m. local time at the Enmax Centre.

    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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