Blades had good return to full season play

Injuries prevented Saskatoon from realizing more potential

The Blades celebrate a goal on March 25.

While the injury bug was a big foe, Saskatoon Blades had a respectable campaign playing their first full regular season since 2018-19.

In 2021-22, the Blades finished fifth overall in the WHL’s Eastern Conference with a 38-26-3-1 regular season record. With one more standings point, the Blades would placed fourth in the Eastern Conference during the regular season and earned home ice advantage for a first round playoff series.

The WHL wasn’t able to play any complete regular seasons or crown league champions in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that gripped the world. The CHL didn’t crown any Memorial Cup champions in either of those campaigns too.

When the WHL Playoffs came around following the completion of the 2021-22 regular season, the Blades found themselves taking on the Moose Jaw Warriors. The Warriors finished fourth overall in the Eastern Conference with a 37-24-4-3 mark to just edge out the Blades with 81 standings points to 80.

Saskatoon won six out of the eight head-to-head meetings between the two sides in the regular season. The Warriors claimed a best-of-seven post-season series 4-1.

Moose Jaw clinched the series with a 6-3 victory at home in Mosaic Place in Game 5 on April 29. The Warriors have to be credited with building a skilled younger roster that played well together in the series against the Blades.

The Blades had a fairly young roster too, and they had some skilled youngsters too that came along way.

Kyle Crnkovic was the Blades leading scorer.

Left-winger Brandon Lisowsky appeared in all 68 of the Blades regular season games in his 17-year-old campaign piling up 33 goals and 25 assists to go with a plus-one rating in the plus-minus department.

Rookie 17-year-old import left-winger Egor Sidorov made noise potting 23 goals and 12 assists appearing in 58 regular season games.

Defenceman Tanner Molendyk skated through his 16-year-old season, and he has potential to be one of the better rearguards on the WHL circuit. He had three goals, 15 assists and a minus-six rating in 55 regular season games, but he showed he could play a high volume of minutes when injuries added up.

When it came to the injury department, Blades play-by-play voice Les Lazaruk calculated the club lost 250 man games due to injury in 2021-22. Blades first-year head coach Brennan Sonne had to lament all the line juggled he had to perform due to necessity.

When playoffs came around, the Blades were without captain and star offensive-defenceman Aidan De La Gorgendiere, who had season ending shoulder surgery. During his 19-year-old season, De La Gorgendiere appeared in 54 regular season games for the Blades posting four goals and 41 assists.

He last played on March 25, when the Blades downed the visiting Regina Pats 3-1 at the SaskTel Centre.

Star overage centre Tristen Robins, who finished the campaign as the Blades captain when De La Gorgendiere wasn’t able to comeback, missed the Blades last four regular season games due to injury and their first two playoff contests.

Robins, who has a signed NHL entry-level contract with the San Jose Sharks, suited up for the Blades last three post-season games playing only on the power play with a hobbled ankle. In 62 regular season games, Robins recorded 33 goals, 45 assists and a plus-four rating. He was only a shadow of that type of player in the post-season due to his ankle injury.

Tristen Robins had 33 goals and 45 assists for the Blades.

The Blades came out of the gate with a hot start posting a 9-2-1 record. Struggles took hold of the team at that point.

Following a 4-1 loss to the Prince Albert Raiders on home ice on Dec. 18, 2021, the Blades found themselves heading into the Christmas break with a 15-13-1 mark. At that point, the fact that about two-thirds of the Blades roster had never been through a full 68-game regular season became apparent.

There were a lot of guys that ran out of gas and played on fumes, when the schedule turned to November.

After returning from the Christmas Break, the Blades and the rest of the WHL had their troubles with players, coaches and staff dealing with COVID-19. Most of the WHL was shut down for the first two weeks of January, which included the Blades not playing any games between Jan. 1 and Jan. 14.

Blades rugged overage defenceman Rhett Rhinehart found himself on the WHL COVID-19 Protocol List for a short span.

There was a period of time ranging from three-and-a-half to four weeks during the campaign when Blades general manager Colin Priestner was down due to COVID.

Despite the challenges, the Blades rallied on the ice and had a 29-18-2-1 record when February came to a close.

Over the Blades last 18 regular season games, injuries really started to pile up. 

Rhett Rhinehart gave the Blades a physical presence.

By the time a 7-0 loss to the Warriors in Moose Jaw ended on March 26, the Blades were down eight regulars due to injury including all four regular centres in Robins, Jayden Wiens, Trevor Wong and Josh Pillar.

When the playoffs came around, the Blades were relatively healthy outside of the big exceptions that De La Gorgendiere was out and Robins played the club’s last three post-season games being limited physically due to his ankle injury. Besides the injury battles, the campaign had its highlights.

On April 8, Blades overage star netminder Nolan Maier made 20 saves in a 2-0 win over the visiting Prince Albert Raiders to move alone into top spot on the WHL’s all-time career regular season goaltending wins list with his 121^st victory. 

He finished his regular season career with 122 victories.

Maier had a strong final campaign with the Blades posting a 31-23-4 record, a 2.82 goals against average, a .910 save percentage and three shutouts.

Blades star left-winger Kyle Crnkovic, who was skating through his 19-year-old season, finished fifth in the WHL’s regular season scoring race piling up 94 points on 39 goals and 55 assists to go with an even rating. Crnkovic’s goal, assist and point totals were all career highs, and he was the Blades leading scorer.

With the 2021-22 campaign at an end for the Blades, they of course graduate Maier, Robins and Rhinehart due to the fact they age out of the major junior ranks.

The Blades celebrate a win on April 15.

There were some fans that gripped on social media with classic moans about the Blades lack of post-season success that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic caused shutdowns in March of 2020. Those moans are misplaced due to what has happened in the world since March of 2020, but some upset fans will continue their upset fandom no matter what happens in the world, while conveniently forgetting they cried about having no Blades hockey to watch during shutdowns.

The Blades have the potential to return a strong roster for the upcoming 2022-23 campaign and will have a more regular off-season to prepare for the next season.

Going forward, there should be some well-placed optimism about the future looking good for the Blades.

Oil Kings deal Rebels major blow with OT win, other notes

Jake Neighbours scored the OT winner for the Oil Kings.

Captain Jake Neighbours’ overtime goal might be a blow the Red Deer Rebels can’t come back from.

On Monday before 3,506 spectators at the Peavey Mart Centrium in Red Deer, Neighbours, who is a star left-winger, scored his first goal of the post-season at the 7:17 mark of overtime to deliver his Edmonton Oil Kings to a 5-4 victory over the Rebels in Game 3 of a WHL Eastern Conference semifinal series between the two sides.

With the win, the Oil Kings took a stranglehold 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven set. The favoured Oil Kings will try to close out the series against the Rebels in Game 4 on Wednesday set for 7 p.m. local time at the Peavey Mart Centrium.

Luke Prokop, Dylan Guenther, Carter Souch and Justin Sourdif all had singles in regulation for the Oil Kings. Liam Keeler, Kalan Lind, Arshdeep Bains and Jhett Larson replied with singles for the Rebels in regulation.

Edmonton had a 4-2 lead, but Bains scored with 7:10 remaining in the third and Larson potted the equalizer with 6:34 to play in the third to force overtime.

The Rebels comeback wasn’t to be as Neighbours netted the overtime winner.

Sebastian Cossa made 18 saves to pick up the win in goal for the Oil Kings. Connor Unger turned away 47 shots to take the setback in net for the Rebels despite a valiant effort to steal the game.

On Monday, Cossa was named the WHL’s goaltender of the week for the week ending on Sunday. He captured the weekly award having shutout the Rebels in the first two games of the series.

Last Thursday, Cossa made 18 saves as the Oil Kings downed the Rebels 4-0 in Game 1 of the series at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Cossa followed that up with a 26 save performance last Saturday as the Oil Kings blanked the Rebels 5-0 in Game 2 of the series also played at Rogers Place.

The WHL’s conference semifinal round could potentially be a quick one. In the other Eastern Conference semifinal, the Winnipeg Ice, the WHL’s top club in the regular season, hold a 2-0 series lead over the Moose Jaw Warriors.

In the Western Conference, the favoured Kamloops Blazers lead the Vancouver Giants 2-0 in one semifinal series, and the favoured Portland Winterhawks lead the Seattle Thunderbirds 2-0 in the other semifinal series.

• On Monday, Winnipeg Ice left-winger Owen Pederson was named the WHL’s player of the week for the week ending on May 8. He had a goal and four assists helping the Ice win the first two games of their WHL Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Moose Jaw Warriors.
• On Monday, Kelowna Rockets import right-winger Pavel Novak signed an NHL entry-level contract with the Minnesota Wild. The Wild selected Novak in the fifth round and 146^th overall in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. Novak, who turned 20-years-old on April 16, appeared in 62 regular season games for the Rockets in 2021-22 recording 29 goals, 43 assists and a plus-26 rating in the plus-minus department.
• Last Wednesday, Mitch Love, who is the head coach of the Stockton Heat, was named the AHL’s coach of the year. Love guided the Heat to a first place finish in the Pacific Division with a 46-16-5-2 record. The 46 victories is a regular season record for the Heat along with the team’s 97 standings points. The division title win was a first in Heat franchise history. Before joining the Heat, Love was the head coach of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades for three seasons.
• I put together new content for the Gordie Howe Sports Complex’s Howe Happenings blog that went live on Monday. I created a piece called “Home is where the heart is for Neufeld – O-lineman finds stomping grounds in Sask. and the ’Peg.” It is a catch up piece with Winnipeg Blue Bombers star offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld, who is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Football team from the U Sports ranks. That article can be found by clicking right here. I also created a photo roundup that can be found by clicking 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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