Blades break skid with ugly win

Goalie Nolan Maier watches the puck land on the crossbar.

    The Saskatoon Blades sure know how to make things adventurous.

    On Tuesday night before 3,379 spectators at the SaskTel Centre, the Blades took a 3-0 lead on the visiting Edmonton Oil Kings, who sit last in the entire WHL. It seemed the Blades were in position to romp to victory, but the Oil Kings had other plans.

    The visitors roared back to force a 3-3 tie. The Blades went ahead 5-3, saw their edge shrink to 5-4 before going ahead 6-4 late in the third. After Oil Kings overage captain Colton Kehler scored with exactly 17 seconds remaining in the third, the Blades managed to close out the final seconds to hold on to a 6-5 victory.

Braylon Shmyr netted the winning goal for the Blades.

    The win ended a four game losing streak that dropped the club out of a playoff position.

    The victory allowed the Blades to improve to 32-31-2-1 to sit two points behind the Prince Albert Raiders (29-25-9-2) for the second wildcard spot in the WHL’s Eastern Conference. The Raiders have a game in hand on the Blades and will make that up by hosting the Oil Kings in Prince Albert on Wednesday.

    Blades head coach Dean Brockman was pleased his team found a way to pull out Tuesday’s game.

    “A win is a win,” said Brockman. “When you haven’t won for a while, every win matters.

    “We’re pretty fragile after losing four in a row. When that happens, guys tend to grip things a little bit more.

Dawson Davidson gets set to drive a shot from the point for the Blades.

    “You tend to play a lot tighter and you push the issue a little bit too much. It is what it is, but we are happy with the win.”

    One of the big keys to Tuesday’s victory for the Blades was the fact they went 4-for-7 on the power play. The Oil Kings cashed in on 1-of-5 power-play chances.

    Saskatoon’s biggest power-play goal came while working on a two-man advantage with 7:21 remaining in the third period. Blades star overage left-winger Braylon Shmyr corralled the rebound from a shot by defenceman Dawson Davidson in front of the Edmonton net and roofed home a goal over fallen Oil Kings netminder Boston Bilous.

Blades LW Michael Farren zips past Oil Kings D Conner McDonald.

    Shmyr’s goal gave the Blades a much needed 6-4 lead.

    “We’ve been struggling on the power play, but tonight we did an excellent job,” said Shmyr. “We’ve been working on it in practice.

    “We just thought that we have to keep it simple and try not to do too much. That is exactly what we did. We have to just carry that on to the next game.”

    With his goal, Shmyr matched his career high for goals in one season at 35, which was a feat he managed to do last season.

    “It feels great to do that,” said Shmyr. “It is definitely a good accomplishment.

Brett Kemp had a goal for the Oil Kings on Tuesday night.

    “I’ve definitely played a lot of good players this year, and they definitely helped me get there.”

    The Blades went ahead to 2-0 in the first with power-play goals coming from the sticks of Michael Farren and Eric Florchuk. Just 56 seconds into the second period, Davidson potted his 10th goal of the campaign off an individual rush into the offensive zone.

    Before the second period hit the halfway point, the Oil Kings tied things up at 3-3 with singles coming from Kobe Mohr, Carter Souch and Brett Kemp.

    “We realized that we had to get back on our horse and get going,” said Shmyr. “That was exactly what we did.

    “Throughout the game, we kind of let the foot off the pedal there. We battled hard towards the end to get the win.”

    The Blades restored order going into the second intermission with a 5-3 lead off a power-play goal from Max Gerlach and the 29^th goal of the year coming from the stick of Josh Paterson to go ahead 5-3. Centre Kirby Dach drew assists on three of the Blades goals.

The Blades celebrate their win over the Oil Kings.

    Defenceman Conner McDonald wired home a shot at the 9:54 mark of the third for the Oil Kings to trim the Blades lead to 5-4. That set the stage for a roller-coaster final 10 minutes of the frame.

    Nolan Maier made 26 stops to pick up the win in goal for the Blades. Bilous turned away 30 shots to take the setback in goal for the Oil Kings (19-39-6-2).

    The Blades have six games remaining on their regular season schedule and return to action hosting the Calgary Hitmen on Friday at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre.

    Brockman wants his side to keep pushing for a playoff berth. The Blades last made the playoffs in 2013.

    “For us, we are running out of time,” said Brockman. “We have to find ways to win games.

    “It doesn’t matter who we are playing. It is great to get the win.”

Back in the Express with Shirley

Grace Shirley had a spectacular season with the Stars.

    I was back in the pages of the Saskatoon Express this week with a feature story on Grace Shirley.

Shirley is a 16-year-old star centre with the Saskatoon Stars of the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League. She had a stellar year appearing in 23 regular season games collecting career highs in goals (30) and assists (18).

    The skilled forward is one of two players in the history of the Stars to score 30-or-more goals in one regular season.

    With Shirley putting up big numbers, the Stars topped the SFMAAAHL standings with a 24-3-1 record to earn a bye into the semifinal round of the league playoffs. The Stars will face the Regina Rebels (17-8-3) in a best-of-five SFMAAAHL semifinal series. Game 1 is set for Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Agriplace Arena.

    Game 2 is slated for this coming Monday in Regina, and Game 3 is scheduled for Tuesday, March 13 at 7 p.m. at the Agriplace Arena.

    The Rebels claimed a best-of-five SFMAAAHL quarter-final series 3-1 against the Swift Current Diamond Energy Wildcats.

    Besides putting up big offensive totals with the Stars, Shirley played for Canada at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s under-18 women’s world championship, which ran Jan. 6 to 13 in Dmitrov, Russia. She helped Canada win a bronze medal at that event.

    The story on Shirley can be round right here.

    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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