Wright strides into hero’s spotlight in Blades 6-3 win

Saskatoon downs archrival Raiders in crazy clash

Charlie Wright (#47) roofs home the winning goal for the Blades.

Charlie Wright found the perfect timing to find his inner Bobby Orr.

On Wednesday night, Wrights’ Saskatoon Blades were locked in a 3-3 tie with the Prince Albert Raiders late in the third period of a WHL regular season clash at the SaskTel Centre between the archrival clubs. When the Blades went on the power play with 2:31 remaining in the frame, the 20-year-old defenceman skated into the spotlight.

After getting possession of the puck, Wright skated down the right wing of the Prince Albert zone, cut across the front of the visitor’s set and roofed home a power play goal to put the host side up 4-3 with 2:09 remaining in the third. Wright’s power-play tally held up as the winner as left-winger Tyler Parr and centre Lukas Hansen added empty-net goals to deliver the Blades to a 6-3 victory before a season high crowd of 7,920 spectators.

The Blades celebrate Charlie Wright’s power-play winning goal.

Wright’s winning goal was his fourth tally of the season to go along with 17 assists and a plus-four rating in the plus-minus department. While the Blades often relay on Wright to be a shutdown defensive-defenceman in his own zone, he has shown this season and last season he can deliver offensively when the Blades need him too.

Last season, Wright posted eight goals, 32 assists and a plus-33 rating appearing 66 regular season games for the Blades.

Wednesday’s encounter between the Blades and Raiders was the first game for both sides since returning from their respective Christmas breaks. It was a crazy one that was full of momentum swings and some irregular occurrences.

Charlie Wright has four goals and 17 assists this season.

The contest was also the Teddy Bear Toss game for the Blades, so that provided sites that are only seen for one home date a season.

Both teams had some key players missing out of their respective lineups, so you got to see how the Blades and Raiders persevered through that development too. The Blades were without star centre Fraser Minten, who is serving as the captain of Canada’s team for the world juniors going on right now in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Blades star 18-year-old defenceman Tanner Molendyk was originally on Canada’s roster for world juniors. Molendyk suffered a fractured wrist in Canada’s 6-2 win over Switzerland in a pre-tournament game this past Friday and is currently unavailable to play for Canada or the Blades.

Easton Armstrong (#27) scored the Teddy Bear goal for the Blades.

Saskatoon’s other scratches due to injury included defenceman Carter Herman (upper body, week-to-week), and left-wingers Misha Volotovskii (upper body, day-to-day) and Vaughn Watterodt (upper body, week-to-week). Associate player call up Colten Worthington was a healthy scratch.

The Raiders were without star 17-year-old left-winger Ryder Ritchie who is listed as week-to-week after taking a knee-to-knee hit by Kelowna Rockets 19-year-old left-winger Max Graham. That hit occurred in the Raiders 4-3 home loss to the Rockets on Dec. 15 at the Art Hauser Centre.

A member of the Blue Crew helps with the stuffed animal clean up.

Raiders 17-year-old import rookie right-winger Matej Kusiesa is out week-to-week with an upper body injury.

In a game that had a lot of back-and-forth play, the Blades broke through on the scoreboard scoring the Teddy Bear goal with 2:42 remaining in the opening frame.

Blades right-winger Rowan Calvert had the puck right beside the ride side of the Prince Albert net. He put a backhand pass out to star 20-year-old left-winger Easton Armstrong, who was set up in perfect shooting position by the right side of the Raiders goal.

A truck is stuffed with stuffed animals for Saskatoon are charities.

Armstrong wired home his 18^th of the season to give the Blades a 1-0. After Armstrong scored, seemingly a whole tonne of Teddy Bears rained downed from the 7,920 fans in the building.

The fans in attendance did such an outstanding job littering the ice with stuffed animals that will be distributed to various Saskatoon area charities it took about 32 minutes in real time to complete the clean up and the first intermission. The teams were sent to the dressing room for an early first intermission after the clean up and the remaining 2:42 of the opening frame was completed after the intermission.

Sloan Stanick had two goals and an assist for the Raiders.

The two pickup trucks that were brought out on the ice to haul away the stuffed animals were filled up to the point that they were overflowing. Blades players and Blades and SaskTel Centre staffers had to push the stuffed animals into a couple of different corner exits to get them off the ice in as speedy a fashion as possible.

When the teams returned to the ice, Blades star import right-winger Egor Sidorov extended Saskatoon’s advantage to 2-0 with 1:33 remaining in the third. Sidorov roofed home his 33^rd goal of the season on a backhand shot to give the hosts their two-goal edge.

The Raiders proceeded to get some traction scoring 61 seconds into the second period. Star 20-year-old left-winger Sloan Stanick scored on a wraparound on a fallen Blades netminder Evan Gardner to cut the Saskatoon lead to 2-1.

Eric Johnston had an assist for the Raiders on Wednesday.

The visitors pressed hard for the rest of the frame searching for the equalizer, but they weren’t able to even the score when the second period expired.

At the 8:48 mark of the third, the Raiders evened the score at 2-2 after scoring a goal off a positive bounce. 

While applying pressure in the Saskatoon zone, Raiders centre Harrison Lodewyk fired a shot that miss the Saskatoon net, but the puck deflected off the back boards behind the net right to Stanick, who was alone at the left side of the Blades net.

Stanick popped his second goal of the contest to put his Raiders on even terms with the Blades on the scoreboard.

Tyler Parr had two goals and an assist for the Blades on Wednesday.

With 9:18 remaining in the third, the Raiders jumped in front 3-2 on a power-play goal from centre Hayden Pakkala, who deflected home a point shot from Prince Albert captain Eric Johnston.

The Blades didn’t go away and pulled even on the scoreboard just under three minutes later on a strange tally.

While applying pressure in the Prince Albert zone, Parr fired a shot on net past a fallen Raiders netminder Max Hildebrand, and the shot appeared to be kept out of the goal and cleared away by Raiders right-winger Brayden Dube. 

Egor Sidorov scored his 33rd goal of the season on Wednesday.

Dube cleared the puck right on to the stick of Blades veteran defenceman Ben Saunderson. Saunderson quickly popped home the gift for the apparent equalizer.

The officials checked the play out on video review and discovered that Parr’s initial shot indeed crossed the goal-line of the Raiders net to allow the Blades to even the score at 3-3. 

Parr was credited with the equalizer about three seconds before Saunderson put the puck in the net on the original continuation of the play.

That set the stage for Wright to come through with the winner on the power play and for the Blades to round out the scoring with two empty-net goals.

Lukas Hansen scored an empty-net goal for the Blades.

Gardner stopped 29 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Blades, who sit first overall in the WHL with a 24-8-2 mark. Hildebrand turned away 31-of-35 shots in net for the Raiders, who fell to 17-16-0-2 to sit seventh overall in the Eastern Conference.

Parr had an assist to go along with his two goals. Armstrong had a pair of assists to go with his Teddy Bear tally. Stanick had an assist to go along with his two markers.

The Blades, who are rated sixth in the CHL Top 10 Rankings, return to action on Friday when they travel to Brandon to take on the Wheat Kings (7 p.m., Westoba Place).

The Blades celebrate their win on Wednesday.

The Raiders get back at it on Saturday when they return home to host the Moose Jaw Warriors (7 p.m., Art Hauser Centre).

So far this season, the Blades have won all four of their head-to-head matchups with the Raiders. Even during stretches were one side is collecting all the wins, Wednesday’s contest showed that rivalry clashes between the Blades and Raiders are still must watch encounters.

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