Blades rock Rebels 5-2 in bounce back win

Tristen Robins had a pair of goals and an assist on Saturday.

It proved to be no problem at all for the Saskatoon Blades to get a bounce back win against a team that had won seven in a row.

On Saturday night, the Blades rolled off a 5-2 WHL regular season victory over the visiting Red Deer Rebels to the delight of 3,999 spectators in attendance at the SaskTel Centre. The Rebels, who have been one of the WHL’s top teams this season, entered Saturday’s clash riding a seven game win streak.

The Blades went into the encounter having dropped a 4-3 heartbreaker in overtime at home one night earlier to the WHL East Division leading Winnipeg Ice.

The Blades celebrate a goal from Noah Boyko.

After falling to the Ice, the response by “the Bridge City Bunch” against the Rebels was a welcome one. Actually, Blades head coach Brennan Sonne appreciated how his club took on the Rebels’ traditionally tough and physical style of play.

“My favourite part of tonight was that we stayed in the battle,” said Sonne. “Red Deer is a big, strong, physical team.

“They can be intimidating. Instead of shying away from that, I thought we engaged with it, which is awesome from our group. As kind of a younger team and a smaller team, we engaged in that battle pretty much the whole time, so I was really pleased with that.”

The Rebels came out of the gates holding a 7-2 edge in shots on goal before the Blades hit top gear.

With 6:19 remaining in the first, the Blades broke through on the scoreboard, when right-winger Noah Boyko deflected home a point shot by defenceman Rhett Rhinehart to give the host side a 1-0 lead.

Rhett Rhinehart scored for the Blades on the power play.

About two-and-a-half minutes later, Rhinehart pushed the Blades advantage out to 2-0 floating home a point shot through a screen to the top left corner of the Red Deer goal with the hosts working on a power play.

The Blades weren’t done on the scoreboard there. With 54.6 seconds remaining in the first, Blades overage star centre Tristen Robins scored on a one-timer off a set up pass from sophomore defenceman Tanner Molendyk. The puck from Robins’ shot hit Rebels netminder Chase Coward, bounced high into the air and floated over top the puck stopper into the Red Deer goal giving the Blades a 3-0 lead.

Vaughn Watterodt, right, drives a shot on goal for the Blades. 

“We’ve kind of eased into games as of late,” said Sonne. “The first five minutes or so we’ve just kind of not been right into it right away.

“It has been a point of emphasis for us. Once we got our legs under us a little bit, and we started spending some offensive zone time I thought we just kind of got rolling and got some pucks to the net and did some good things.

“Those offensive zone shifts really helped.”

The only down part for the Blades in the opening 20 minutes was fact veteran 18-year-old centre Trevor Wong went down with the team holding a 2-0 edge. Wong went down after taking a cross check in the mid-section from Rebels import defenceman Christoffer Sedoff after making a pass in the offensive zone.

Tristen Robins scored a key power-play goal in the second period.

No penalty was called on the play.

The injury brought an end to Wong’s streak or recording a point in 11 consecutive games. During that streak, Wong piled up 17 points coming on eight goals and nine assists.

The Blades kept coming in the second period. Working on the power play, Robins blasted down the left-wing and put home his second of the contest fooling Coward on a deke move to give Saskatoon a 4-0 edge at the 5:11 mark of the second frame.

Coward was pulled after that tally having stopped 9-of-13 shots sent his way to take the loss in goal for the Rebels (36-16-2-1). Connor Ungar turned away 14-of-15 shots playing the rest of the way in relief for the Rebels.

Vaughn Watterodt tallied to give the Blades a 5-0 lead.

Just over five minutes later, the Blades went ahead 5-0 on a goal from left-winger Vaughn Watterodt, whose bad angle shot handcuffed Ungar and went into the Red Deer goal.

Robins said it was big for his squad to have a strong start to the second period to follow the strong finish they had to the opening frame. The Clear Lake, Man., product thought his club did a good job matching the Rebels physical style.

“They are physical team, and that is what helps them win,” said Robins, who had an assist to go with his two goals on Saturday. “We elevated our game.

Arshdeep Bains scored 21 seconds into the third for the Rebels.

“We had a physical night as well. We didn’t shy away at all and ultimately came out with these two points.”

Just 21 seconds into the third, the Rebels got on the scoreboard as Rebels star overage right-winger Arshdeep Bains scored on the power play to trim the Blades lead to 5-1. Bains was his 30^th goal of the season marking the first time in his WHL career he hit the 30-goal plateau.

Sedoff added a second power-play goal for the Rebels to round out the game’s scoring.

Nolan Maier stopped 28 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Blades (30-18-3-1). The victory was Maier’s 116^th of his regular season career, and he is just sixth goalie in the history of the WHL to reach that milestone.

The officials break up a scrum in the third period.

Maier, who is already the Blades franchise record holder for career regular season victories, is four wins away from equaling the WHL’s career regular season wins record of 120. That record is held jointly by Corey Hirsch and Tyson Sexsmith.

Hirsch picked up his 120 victories playing four seasons with the Kamloops Blazers from 1988 to 1992. 

Sexsmith collected his 120 wins over five seasons with the Vancouver Giants from 2005 to 2009. He also had one non-decision relief appearance for the Medicine Hat Tigers late in the 2004-05 campaign.

Robins said the bounce back victory for his team on Saturday was big after falling in heartbreaking style in overtime one night earlier.

Nolan Maier picked up his 116th career regular season win.

“It was awesome that we got three out of four points this weekend, but it is easily a weekend where we should have had four out of four,” said Robins. “Coming into this game and executing like we did is a must.”

Blades captain Aidan De La Gorgendiere wasn’t able to finish Saturday’s game. There was no status update for either De La Gorgendiere or Wong at the end of the game.

The Blades return to action on Wednesday when they host the Lethbridge Hurricanes (7 p.m., SaskTel Centre).

The Rebels get back it on Friday when they host the Medicine Hat Tigers (7 p.m. Red Deer time, Peavey Mart Centrium).

Robins said his Blades will continue to work on smoothing out kinks in their game in preparation for their clash with the Hurricanes.

The Blades celebrate their win on Saturday over the Rebels.

“We just have to take things one day at a time,” said Robins. “We’re going to have a couple of good practice days here right away to get right and tune things up for that game and hopefully bring back another two big points.”

NOTE – The Blades wore special jerseys for Saturday’s contest to honour the Saskatoon Police Service.

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