That’s just Bananas

Battle-hardened Blades romp over Raiders 6-1

The Blades are all smiles after taking a 4-0 first period lead.

Facing a tough stretch of foes has done the Saskatoon Blades good.

The Blades showed they’re battle hardened from the strength of their recent schedule.

After constantly playing the WHL’s top teams since returning from their Christmas break, the Blades faced off on Friday against their archrivals in the Prince Albert Raiders, who are going sitting on the outside looking in with regards to the WHL playoff picture in going through reload/rebuild campaign.

The Saskatoon side, playing under the nickname “Bananas” for one night as part of a comedic promotion, romped past the Raiders 6-1 to the delight of most of the 4,090 spectators in attendance outside of the healthy contingent of Prince Albert supporters.

Tanner Molendyk scored the Blades first goal on Friday.

In 12 games since returning from the WHL’s Christmas break, the Blades, who are still rated eighth in the latest CHL Top 10 Rankings, have posted a 4-4-3-1 mark. That stretch started with a win over the Raiders and was closed off with another win over the Raiders.

During the 10 games in the middle, the Blades faced the Winnipeg Ice twice, the Red Deer Rebels once, the Seattle Thunderbirds once and the Portland Winterhawks once. Those four clubs sit in the top four of the WHL’s overall standings.

Saskatoon also encountered the Moose Jaw Warriors, who sit sixth in the overall standings, twice and the Calgary Hitmen, who are ninth in the overall standings, once. The Blades also took on the Swift Current Broncos once and the Regina Pats once, when those two clubs were heating up.

Mikhail Volotovskii scored twice for the Blades on Friday.

In most of those setbacks against those stronger foes, the Blades played well and were usually one or two plays or breaks from pulling out a win. Their level of play that they had against those clubs didn’t drop when it came time to play at home against the Raiders on Friday. Saskatoon got rolling quickly and the visitors were never able to recover.

Just 41 seconds into the contest, the Blades broke through first on the scoreboard as highly touted NHL Entry Draft prospect and defenceman Tanner Molendyk fired home a point shot through a screen.

The hosts pushed their advantage out to 2-0 just over six minutes later scoring on the power play. After winning an offensive zone faceoff, Blades Belarusian import right-winger Egor Sidorov drove to the net and put a shot on goal that was stopped causing a net scramble. Blades star right-winger Brandon Lisowsky was able to push the loose puck into the Prince Albert goal to create the two-goal edge.

Egor Sidorov had a goal and an assist for the Blades.

Before the opening frame ended, Blades sophomore 17-year-old centre Mikhail Volotovskii scored a pair of goals 28 seconds apart from each other to give the Blades a 4-0 advantage.

The Raiders proceeded to pull their starting netminder Max Hildebrand after the Blades fourth tally. Hildebrand turned away 5-of-9 shots sent his way to take the loss in goal for the Raiders (15-25-3). Import Belurusian Tikhon Chaika played the rest of the way in relief turning away 19-of-21 shots sent his way.

Just two minutes into the second, the Blades continued to roll entering the Prince Albert zone on a two-on-one break. Saskatoon star left-winger Conner Roulette charged down the left wing and fed a pass across the front of the Prince Albert goal to Sidorov, who popped home his 25^th goal of the season to increase the Blades edge to 5-0.

Sloan Stanick (#23) scored the Raiders lone goal on Friday.

The Raiders finally broke through on the scoreboard offensively at the 9:15 mark of the second period, when star left-winger Sloan Stanick slipped a loose puck home at the right side of the Saskatoon goal to cut the Blades edge to 5-1. Stanick’s goal came just as a Prince Albert power play expired.

With 4:18 remaining in the second, Raiders overage centre Keaton Sorensen took a double minor penalty for high-sticking, which will trigger an automatic review by the WHL office for a possible suspension.

During the first half of that power-play chance, the Blades restored their five-goal edge as centre Jordan Keller wired home a goal from the right slot to make the score sit at 6-1 in favour of the host side. 

Aidan De La Gorgendiere had two assists for the Blades.

The Blades proceeded to cruise from there and shut things down defensively to allow the 6-1 score to hold up as the game’s final outcome.

Ethan Chadwick stopped 17 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Blades, who improved to 28-9-3-1 to sit third overall in the Eastern Conference and fifth in the overall WHL standings.

In Friday’s romp, defenceman Ben Saunderson, captain Aidan De La Gorgendiere, right-winger Vaughn Watterodt and Roulette all picked up two assists each for the Blades. 

Molendyk and Sidorov each had assists to go along with their goals to account for respective two-point nights.

The Blades celebrate their victory on Friday night.

The Blades have won all five of their head-to-head encounters with the Raiders this season outscoring the Prince Albert side 25-5 along the way. The two sides go at it again on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert.

That contest will start a stretch where the Blades will play five straight games on the road.

Going forward, the Blades need to aim to keep their level of play high on a consistent basis. That will get them ready for the time they face teams that sit at or near the top of the WHL standings once again.

NOTES THAT ARE BANANAS – For the second straight year, the Blades rebranded themselves as the Saskatoon Bananas for one game as comedic promotion. 

Mikhail Volotovskii (#17) gives a stick to the crowd at game’s end.

Last year since they played a regular season game on April 1 which is April Fool’s Day, they elected to play that night at the SaskTel Centre as the Bananas in downing the Moose Jaw Warriors 4-1. With Friday’s 6-1 victory over the Raiders in the books, the Blades are 2-0 in games which they take the ice as the Bananas.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.