Blades shake Royals 5-4 in OT on Lisowsky’s winner

Brandon Lisowsky (#8) celebrates his OT winner on Saturday.

Brandon Lisowsky delivered the blow in overtime that allowed the Saskatoon Blades to finally knockout the Victoria Royals.

In a WHL regular season clash on Saturday night, the Blades and Royals were locked in a 4-4 tie early in overtime at the SaskTel Centre. On a faceoff in the Royals zone, Blades star centre Fraser Minten won a draw clean getting the puck to Lisowsky at the top of the faceoff circle.

On a set play, Lisowsky quickly wired home his 22^nd goal of the season to deliver the Blades to a 5-4 victory to the delight of the 5,794 spectators in attendance on a frigid night in Saskatoon. The temperature outside the Blades home rink was -36 C.

Fraser Minten set up the OT winner for the Blades on a faceoff win.

Lisowsky’s goal, which was his fifth winner of the season and came 20 seconds into overtime, allowed the Blades to put away a Royals team that seemingly wouldn’t go away. The Royals, who were closing out a five-game road trip against foes from the WHL’s East Division, trailed 4-1 at one point in the second period and cut the gap to 4-3 before the second intermission.

The Blades dominated play in the third period allowing the Royals to have only one shot on net. The Victoria side made that shot count.

With 35 seconds remaining in the third period, the Royals had netminder Ryan Tamelin pulled for an extra attacker, and they got the equalizer. Royals recently acquired 20-year-old right-winger Tyson Laventure centred a pass from behind the Saskatoon net to rookie centre Logan Pickford, who was positioned in front of the goal.

Logan Pickford celebrates scoring an equalizer for the Royals.

Pickford, who turned 18-years-old this past Monday, fired home his second tally of the contest and seventh of the season to even the score at 4-4 and force overtime. For a moment, it looked like Pickford, who is a Saskatoon product, was going to write a special homecoming story for himself.

His equalizer set the stage for Lisowsky to play the role of hero for the Blades in overtime.

The win allowed the Blades, who are rated second in the CHL Top 10 Rankings, to improve to 28-8-2-2 to sit alone in first place in the overall WHL standings. The Royals, who have gone into extra time in six of their last seven games, remained second in the B.C. Division as their record moved to 23-14-3-3.

Alexander Suzdalev score the Blades first goal on Saturday.

Saturday’s game marked the first time the Blades hit the ice with their potential regular roster since passing of last Wednesday’s WHL trade deadline. The Blades entered the contest with just two defencemen out with upper body injuries in 18-year-old veteran Carter Herman (week-to-week) and rookie Morgan Tastad (day-to-day), who turned 18-years-old last Wednesday.

The Blades healthy scratches were a trio of rookies in 16-year-old defenceman Brayden Klimpke, 16-year-old right-winger Hudson Kibblewhite and 17-year-old right-winger William James.

Saskatoon’s roster got a big boost with the return of 18-year-old star offensive-defenceman Tanner Molendyk. Before Saturday’s clash with the Royals, Molendyk last suited up for the Blades in a 4-2 victory at home against the Red Deer Rebels on December 8, 2023.

Tanner Molendyk returned from injury to score for the Blades.

Following that win against the Rebels, Molendyk joined Canada’s world junior team, but never got to play in the main tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden. He suffered a fractured wrist in Canada’s 6-2 win over Switzerland in a pre-tournament game on December 22, 2023.

In Saturday’s outing with the Blades, Molendyk, who was selected in the first round and 24^th overall by the Nashville Predators in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft and has a signed entry-level contract with the Predators, looked sound. He posted a goal and a plus-one rating in the plus-minus department.

The Blades looked like they were poised to potentially roll the Royals jumping out to a 2-0 lead and holding a 14-7 edge in shots on goal after the game’s opening 20 minutes.

Tanner Scott had a goal for the Royals on Saturday.

At the 8:07 mark of the first, Royals 17-year-old right-winger Escalus Burlock gave the puck away in his own zone to Blades star import left-winger Alexander Suzdalev. Suzdalev promptly buried the gift into the back of the Victoria net to give the Blades a 1-0 lead.

With 5:34 remaining in the first, Molendyk recorded his tally one-timing home a setup pass from defensive partner Ben Saunderson to push the Blades lead out to 2-0.

Just 95 seconds into the second, Pickford scored his first goal of the contest by golf chipping home a loose puck in front of the Saskatoon net to cut the Blades lead to 2-1.

Dawson Pasternak scored for the Royals on Saturday.

At the 6:15 mark of the second, the Blades pushed their advantage out to 3-1 lead thanks to a power-play goal from 20-year-old defenceman Charlie Wright on a mid-range shot. Just 71 seconds later, Blades star 20-year-old left-winger Easton Armstrong showed some sweet hands tucking home his 21^st goal of the season to give a host side a 4-1 advantage.

The Royals proceeded to counter with a push back. Star 20-year-old right-winger Dawson Pasternak scored with an off-speed shot on the power play and 19-year-old left-winger Tanner Scott popped home a loose puck in the crease of the Saskatoon net to cut the Blades lead to 4-3 heading into the second intermission.

From there, Pickford netted his equalizer for the Royals with 35 seconds remaining in the third and Lisowsky recorded the winner for the Blades just 20 seconds into overtime.

Charlie Wright scored on the power play for the Blades.

Austin Elliott stopped 14 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Blades. Ryan Tamelin turned away 33 shots to take the setback in net for the Royals. Tamelin, who stands 6-foot-8 and is 17-years-old, was making his first career WHL start having spent most of the 2023-24 campaign with the Okanagan Hockey Academy’s Under-18 Prep Team.

Import right-winger Egor Sidorov had a pair of assists for the Blades in the win.

The Blades return to action on Sunday, when they host the 15-20-4-2 Regina Pats (4 p.m., SaskTel Centre).

The Royals, who have four extra time losses and a regulation setback to show from their five-game road trip through the East Division, get back at it this coming Saturday when they host the Kamloops Blazers (4 p.m. local time, Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena).

The Blades celebrate their OT win on Saturday.

In the coming weeks, the Blades could potentially juggle their lines and defensive pairs in order to find the combinations that have the best chemistry production. Still as was seen on Saturday, it is a good sign they are able to find ways to win even when a foe grudging doesn’t want to give up a knockout blow.

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