Flowers and milestones come to Blades to close regular season

Tensions rising with Raiders on cusp of playoff series

The Blades mob Egor Sidorov (#19) after he scores his 50th goal.

The flowers and milestones came to the Saskatoon Blades in bunches.

On Saturday night before a season high 13,004 spectators at the SaskTel Centre, Blades blanked their archrivals the Prince Albert Raiders 5-0 in the final WHL regular season game of the 2023-24 campaign for both clubs. It was a night that was beyond memorable for “The Bridge City Bunch” as rare special moments seemingly poured in.

First, the night began with the Blades being presented the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy for locking up first place overall in the WHL standings for the fifth time in team history. Saskatoon officially clinched first overall one night earlier with a 5-1 victory over the Raiders in Prince Albert.

Fans cheer Egor Sidorov getting his 50th goal of the season.

With Saturday’s win, the Blades complete their regular season schedule posting a 50-13-2-3 record in topping the WHL standings. That marked the third time in team history the Blades have won 50 or more games in a regular season with the other two occasions coming in a 72-game regular campaign.

The Blades first won 50-or-more games back in the 1982-83 season when they topped the WHL standings with a record of 52 wins, 19 losses and one draw. They set their franchise record for wins in a season at 56 back in the 2010-11 campaign when they placed first overall with a 56-13-1-2 mark.

Trevor Wong (#38) enjoys recording his 100th point.

Blades captain Trevor Wong collected one goal and one assist to hit the 100-point plateau for the first time in his WHL career. He concluded the regular season posting 101 points coming off 15 goals and a WHL leading 86 assists to go with a plus-22 rating in the plus-minus department.

He became the first Blades player to hit the 100-point barrier in a regular season since three Blades pulled off that accomplishment back in the 1995-96 campaign. In the 1995-96 campaign, centre Mark Deyell led the Blades and the WHL with 159 points coming off 61 goals and 98 assists.

Blades players embrace Trevor Wong (#38) after he gets his 100th point.

Right-winger Frank Banham, whose number 39 was recently retired by the Blades, finished second in team and league scoring with 152 points coming off a team record 83 goals 69 assists. Centre Clarke Wilm was the third Blades player to hit the 100-plateau in 1995-96 with 110 points coming off 49 goals and 61 assists.

Also on Saturday, Blades star import right-winger Egor Sidorov got his team’s final goal with 35.3 seconds remaining in the third period. That tally gave Sidorov 50 goals on the campaign. He became the first Blades player to score 50-or-more goals in a season since Deyell and Banham put up their goal totals in the 1995-96 campaign.

The Blades receive the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy.

Blades rookie goaltender Evan Gardner, who turned 18-years-old in late January, stopped all 27 shots he faced to pick up his fourth shutout of the season. In 30 appearances with the Blades, Gardner posted a 21-5-2 record, a 1.91 goals against average, and a .927 save percentage to go with his shutouts. His goals against average and save percentage topped the WHL.

The night ended with the Blades honouring three overage players in Wong, left-winger Easton Armstrong and defensive-defenceman Charlie Wright. All three were given special personalized art paintings at the end of the game.

Egor Sidorov recorded 50 goals and 88 points in the regular season.

The night’s festivities allowed the Blades, who have won three straight, to enter the post-season on the highest of high notes.

While Saturday’s game was the last regular season game for the Blades and Raiders before they meet in a best-of-seven first round series in the WHL Playoffs, the contest was highly competitive.

The Blades opened the game’s scoring at the 6:29 mark of the opening frame working on the power play on tally from 18-year-old centre Rowan Calvert.

Calvert was positioned in front of the Prince Albert net and tried to deflect home a shot from the right point by import right-winger Alexander Suzdalev. The deflection shot was stopped by Raiders rookie goalie Nathan Preston, but Calvert potted the rebound for his 10 goal of the season that put the host side up 1-0.

Trevor Wong finished the regular season recording 101 points.

Just 42 seconds into the second, the Blades increased their edge to 2-0 when star overage left-winger Easton Armstrong slipped home a shot from a bad angle at the right side of the Prince Albert net into the Raiders goal. On the play, Preston drifted a ways out of his crease and was brushed into by Blades star centre Fraser Minten and was unable to recover to prevent the Saskatoon tally.

The Blades helped Wong achieve hitting the 100-point plateau at the start of the third while working on the power play. Off the opening faceoff for the frame, Armstrong took the draw for the Blades and drove the puck into an open space on the left wing.

Wong raced on to the puck and jetted into the Prince Albert zone. Just as he entered the left faceoff circle, Wong wired home his 15^th goal of the season to the top left corner of the Prince Albert goal to put the Blades up 3-0 just six seconds into the stanza. 

Justice Christensen (#7) disrupted numerous shots for the Raiders.

That tally was Wong’s 100^th point of the campaign, and he was pretty happy to say the least during the celebration.

At the 11:52 mark of the third, Minten collected his 22^nd goal of the campaign putting a shot home between Preston’s legs to push the Blades advantage out to 4-0.

Throughout the contest, the Blades had been doing their hardest to get Sidorov to 50 goals for the season. The Raiders seemed intent on spoiling that venture, which included seeing offensive-defenceman Justice Christensen block at least three of the winger’s shots. Often, the Raiders players would knock Sidorov to the ice after he taken a shot.

Rowan Calvert (#23) scores the Blades first goal on Saturday.

It could be argued the attention the Raiders paid to Sidorov was great than what the NFL’s New England Patriots paid to Chicago Bears iconic running back Walter Payton way back in Super Bowl XX played on January 26, 1986. While the Patriots were successful at stopping Payton, the Bears won that contest 46-10 at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Blades seemingly last chance to get Sidorov to 50 goals came during a late third period power play. On that man advantage, Wong and Wright got the puck to Sidorov.

Easton Armstrong had a goal and two assists for the Blades.

Sidorov skated down the blue-line and floated an accurate off speed shot from the left point through a screen setup by Armstrong for goal number 50 with 35.3 seconds remaining in the frame to round out the 5-0 final score in favour of the host side. It was the ninth shot on goal Sidorov had in the contest.

On the season, Sidorov posted 50 goals, 38 assists, 88 points and a plus-eight rating. His goals, assists and points totals are career highs.

Armstrong finished the contest collecting two assists to go with his goal.

Preston turned away 22 shots to take the setback in goal for the Raiders. The Raiders finished the regular season with a 31-32-2-23 record to sit eighth overall and hold the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference.

Grady Martin (#28) and Morgan Tastad (#52) start to go at it.

Saturday’s clash was the 10^th head-to-head encounter between the Blades and Raiders and Saskatoon claimed victory in eight of those contests. Tensions been the two sides got high on the ice in the third period resulting in three separate fights.

Just 15 seconds into the third, Raiders veteran defenceman Terrell Goldsmith faced Blades veteran forward Tyler Parr in one bout. With 5:24 remaining in the third, Raiders overage centre Turner McMillan and Blades veteran defenceman Grayden Siepmann went at it in another bout.

After the third period buzzer sounded, Raiders sophomore left-winger Grady Martin went at it with Blades rookie defenceman Morgan Tastad.

Those fights likely foreshadowed more ill feeling that will come up between the two sides in the post-season. Game 1 of the series between the Blades and Raiders is set for Thursday at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre.

The Blades enjoy some post-game fun on Saturday.

While the post-season head-to-head battles are up next, Saturday night at the SaskTel Centre belonged to the Blades.

They got to relish the rewards from a spectacular regular season.

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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