Blades had memorable 2023-24 campaign with bittersweet end

Members of the Blades dwell on the end of their season on May 7.

All involved with the Saskatoon Blades thought they would be preparing right now to play in the Memorial Cup tournament.

Instead of competing for a CHL championship, they are coming to the realization they had a spectacular campaign in 2023-24 that came to a heartbreaking end. The Blades topped the WHL’s overall standings with a 50-13-2-3 record for 105 standings points. Saskatoon won 50 or more games in a regular season for just the third time in team history and hit 100 or more standings points for the sixth time since the franchise first hit the ice in 1964, which was two seasons before the WHL was formed.

For large stretches of the campaign, the Blades top the CHL’s Top 10 Rankings and were rated sixth in the final edition of those ratings.

In the WHL Playoffs, the Blades downed their archrivals in the Prince Albert Raiders in five games in a first round series and swept the Red Deer Rebels in four games in an Eastern Conference semifinal series.

The Blades proceeded to play in an epic Eastern Conference Championship Series against the Moose Jaw Warriors that went to seven games with six contests being decided in overtime. The six overtime games played in one seven game series is a WHL record.

Trevor Wong salutes the SaskTel Centre crowd on May 7.

The series deciding Game 7 of that set was played on Tuesday, May 7, before a campaign high crowd of 13,240 spectators at the SaskTel Centre. The Blades and Warriors went to overtime locked in a 2-2 tie. The contest had a devastating end for the host side.

Just 36 seconds into overtime, Warriors 17-year-old sophomore right-winger Lynden Lakovic drove down the right wing into the Saskatoon zone. From a bad angle, Lakovic backhanded the puck toward the Saskatoon net.

Warriors star overage right-winger Atley Calvert drove towards the Saskatoon net while being covered by Blades utility winger Tyler Parr. The puck from Lakovic’s backhand deflected off Parr’s skate into the Saskatoon net to deliver the Warriors to a 3-2 victory in the extra session.

The Warriors went on to sweep the WHL Championship Series 4-0 over the Portland Winterhawks. Moose Jaw begins playing at the Memorial Cup tournament in Saginaw, Michigan, taking on the OHL’s host Spirit on Friday at the DOW Event Centre (5:30 p.m. Saskatchewan time, TSN).

The Blades after losing what many consider was the best post-season series in the history of the WHL were left to wonder about what might have been.

Charlie Wright goes for a final lap at the SaskTel Centre on May 7.

Captain Trevor Wong, who exhausted is major junior eligibility with the Game 7 loss to the Warriors, came to the Blades in a trade with the Kelowna Rockets on September 28, 2021, which sent centre Colton Dach to the Rockets. Wong was thankful he got to be a member of the Blades for three full seasons and that owner and governor Mike Priestner and general manager and president Colin Priestner had been outstanding to him since his arrival in Saskatoon.

“It is the best thing that has ever happened to me in my hockey career so far,” said Wong, who led the Blades in regular season scoring with 101 points coming off 15 goals and 86 assists. “I can’t thank the organization in CP (Colin Priestner) and Mike (Priestner) and the coaching staff and teammates who brought me in when I was 18.

“I was pretty bummed out when I got traded to be honest not knowing much about Saskatoon and coming to the cold. Just being a Blade is everything to me and embracing the culture and what it means to truly be a Blade and not just on the ice but being a great person in the community and being a great teammate. The organization here wants to build great men and not just hockey players.

“I thought I have kind of embraced it. I’ve tried to put it throughout the boys and throughout the locker room to the younger guys.”

Easton Armstrong processes the end of his WHL career on May 7.

Along with Wong, dependable defenceman Charlie Wright and star left-winger Easton Armstrong also used up their major junior eligibility playing out the 2023-24 campaign as 20-year-olds. Wright was a career member of the Blades joining the squad on a full-time basis in his 16-year-old season. Armstrong was acquired in a trade with the Wenatchee Wild early in the 2023-24 campaign.

Colin Priestner was proud of work everyone with the franchise did for the team. He admits the conclusion of the campaign was bittersweet.

“The run we went on is something you dream of,” said Priestner. “It just ended in kind of a nightmare.

“To think of how close we got, and I still feel like we have the best team in the country I truly do. I feel like we deserved to win (in Game 7 versus the Moose Jaw Warriors). I feel like we were in an unbelievably great series with another great team.

“I feel like we outplayed them substantially (in Game 7) and out chanced them on a two-to-one ratio. For whatever reason, it goes off one of our player’s skates and in and that is it. The plug is just pulled so fast from the season.”

The Blades welcomed lots of new fans to the SaskTel Centre.

The Blades have been strong in each of the past two seasons. In the 2022-23 campaign, the Blades finished fourth overall in the WHL’s regular season standings with a 48-15-4-1 mark. In the WHL Playoffs, they won two series in seven games over Connor Bedard and the Regina Pats and the Rebels before being swept in the Eastern Conference Championship Series 4-0 by the Winnipeg Ice.

Saskatoon has drawn more new and younger fans with their runs the past two seasons. In 2022-23, the Blades averaged 4,506 spectators per game over 34 home dates and 8,780 spectators per contest over 10 home post-season dates. During the 2023-24 campaign, the Blades averaged 5,166 spectators per game over 34 home dates and 9,332 spectators per contest over nine post-season home dates.

Priestner said it has been amazing to a younger generation of fans who have fallen in love with the team come out to games and the people of Saskatoon and area get excited for the team. He was in awe seeing the 13,240 spectators that came out for their Game 7 campaign ending loss to the Warriors.

“You see there are 13,000 people there, and people were coming up to me in the concourse and saying thank you so much for this run,” said Priestner. “I just wish that I was able to deliver a championship to these people in this city, because everybody believed in us.

Egor Sidorov had 50 goals and 88 points in the 2023-24 regular season.

“We did everything we could to bring this city a championship, and they deserved it. They supported us like unbelievably.”

The Blades hit the ice with a number of stars that included import right-winger Egor Sidorov, left-winger Brandon Lisowsky, centre Fraser Minten, defenceman Tanner Molendyk and netminders Evan Gardner and Austin Elliott. Blades fans took a number of other players to heart who brought a high level effort to every game including forwards Vaughn Watterodt, Rowan Calvert, Lukas Hansen, Parr, Misha Volotovskii and William James along with defencemen Ben Saunderson, John Babcock, Grayden Siepmann, Nicholas Andrusiak and Morgan Tastad.

Sidorov, who played his third full season with the team, had a memorable campaign setting career highs in the regular season for goals (50), assists (38) and points (88).

Blades head coach Brennan Sonne said the biggest thing for him that stood out for the 2023-24 squad was how tight the players were.

“They just care about each other,” said Sonne. “They love each other.

Fraser Minten was a big play performer for the Blades.

“They’re brothers. That is what produces the heart – the level of heart you see. The lack of quit.

“They just don’t stop, so that is probably the biggest thing.”

Sonne said it has been a joy to see the players truly enjoy becoming part of the community of Saskatoon and the surrounding area.

“I’m the hockey coach of a junior team, so the hockey side is obviously the main focus,” said Sonne. “But, me and our staff, ownership and management, our priority is helping young men grow into be great citizens, husbands, fathers and I will say this group, these 20-year-olds, the guys graduating from this program are like the best of the best citizens.

“They’re going to be the leaders of our society in the future.”

While the Blades wish they could have pulled out a victory in Game 7, Wong was pleased his squad went down fighting.

“I think as a team we’re very proud of ourselves,” said Wong. “Six games went to overtime in a seven game series.

The Blades react to their season coming to an end on May 7.

“It could have gone either way, and one bad bounce kind of our season is over just like that. We’re very proud of the way we pushed back and played the whole game. We’re very proud of what we accomplished this season.

“There are no heads hanging, because we are proud of ourselves.”

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.