Blades vault to top of WHL’s East Division with win over Pats

Rowan Calvert scored his 23rd goal of the season on Tuesday.

For one night at least, the Saskatoon Blades are back on top of the WHL’s East Division.

On Tuesday night, the Blades downed the Pats in Regina 6-3 in a WHL regular season contest before a crowd of 2,380 spectators at the Brandt Centre. That win to start a three-game road trip allowed the Blades to improve to 34-21-3-4 and jump back into first place in the East Division.

The Blades, who has won their last three straight, sit one standings point ahead of the Prince Albert Raiders (34-22-5-1) and two standings points in front of the Brandon Wheat Kings (33-22-4-3). Both the Raiders and Wheat Kings were idle on Tuesday night. All three of those squads have six games remaining on their respective regular season schedules, so it is a sprint to capture the East Division banner.

Last season, the Blades finished with a 50-13-2-3 mark to top the WHL’s overall standings. In the post-season, the Blades advanced to the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship Series and fell in an epic seven-game set that saw six contests go to overtime to the eventual WHL champion Moose Jaw Warriors.

Going into the current campaign, the Blades weren’t expected to challenge for first in the division. They occupied first place for most of the first half of the regular season.

Leading up the WHL’s trade deadline on January 9, the Blades unloaded stars Brandon Lisowsky, Tanner Molendyk and Ben Riche to stock up on draft capital and add solid younger players. The Blades dealt a lot of high draft selections during a load up last season.

After the trades leading up to this season’s trade deadline, the Blades held first in the East Division for a large part of January before falling out of top spot before the end of the month. They were not expected to crawl back into first in the division, but they did just that on Tuesday.

Before departing on their current road trip, Blades head coach Dan DaSilva said his squad had been hearing the doubters.

“That has been motivation for us all year long,” said DaSilva. “With the guys we had before and the guys we have now, it has still been the same.

Evan Gardner picked up his 20th win of the season on Tuesday.

“We try and focus on getting better every single day and proving people wrong. We’re motivated by the naysayers, the haters and the non-believers, because we have a lot of belief in this group and that room, and they have it too. It would be special.”

Against the Pats on Tuesday, the Blades exploded out to a 3-0 inside the final 5:15 of the opening frame. The Blades got goal coming off the sticks of breakout rookie centre Cooper Williams, who turned 17-year-olds in February, 17-year-old rookie defenceman Brayden Klimpke and standout left-winger Rowan Calvert.

Calvert’s goal came with 45.4 seconds remaining in the first and it was his 23^rd tally of the season.

In the second, the Blades extended their lead to 4-0 when star right-winger Tyler Parr netted his 20^th goal of the campaign. He tipped home a point shot from 17-year-old rookie defenceman Isaac Poll.

Just 1:36 later, the Pats halted the flood as 17-year-old sophomore left-winger Julien Maze scored on the power play to trim the Blades lead to 4-1.

With 2:37 remaining in the second, Blades rookie import left-winger David Lewandowski, who turned 18-years-old in February, scored on a wraparound to push the Blades lead out to 5-1. Just one minute later, Pats 19-year-old right-winger Caden Brown answered back scoring for the host side to trim the Blades advantage to 5-2.

Saskatoon jumped up 6-2 at the 6:18 mark of the third as 20-year-old defenceman Grayden Siepmann scored on the power play with a midrange shot. That tally was Siepmann’s 10 goal of the campaign, which set a new career high for the veteran rearguard.

Pats 16-year-old rookie right-winger Zachary Lansard scored with 6:19 remaining in the third to round out the 6-3 final score in favour of the Blades.

Evan Gardner stopped 25 shots to pick up his 20^th win of the season in goal for the Blades. Ewan Huet turned away 25 shots to take the setback in net for the Pats, who fell to 15-40-5-3.

The Blades return to action on Wednesday when they travel to Brandon to take on the Wheat Kings (5 p.m. local time, Westoba Place).

Grayden Siepmann scored his 10th goal of the season on Tuesday.

Both those squads will be scoreboard watching too, because the Raiders travel to Lethbridge on Wednesday to take on the 40-19-2-2 Hurricanes (7 p.m. local time, VisitLethbridge.com Arena).

The Pats are off until Saturday when they host the Swift Current Broncos (6 p.m. local time, Brandt Centre).

When the final sprint to the end of the regular season ends, DaSilva would like to see his squad still holding on to top spot in the East Division.

“It is a goal of ours to clinch that division title,” said DaSilva. “At the end of the day, our main goal is to focus on getting better every single day.

“That is what we’ve done as the season goes on. You can see that with our group.”

Goldsmith injured in fight, game suspended

A scary scene involving Tri-City Americans defenceman Terrell Goldsmith saw a WHL regular season contest be suspended on Tuesday in Kennewick, Washington.

The host Americans were taking on the Seattle Thunderbirds at the Toyota Center. The Thunderbirds jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, but the contest came to a halt a short time after the first intermission ended.

Just 65 seconds into the second period, Goldsmith, who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 218 pounds, faced Thunderbirds 19-year-old defenceman Ashton Cumby, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 216 pounds, in a staged fight. During the fight, Cumby hit Goldsmith with a punch that knocked the Americans rearguard out.

Goldsmith fell face first to the ice, and he was quickly attended to by the trainers of both teams. The veteran blue-liner was taken to hospital by ambulance and the game was suspended and never resumed after the bout.

The WHL sent out a release late Tuesday night stating Goldsmith is alert, responsive and was receiving medical attention. The league said the contest between the Americans and Thunderbirds would be rescheduled at a later date.

Goldsmith, who has a signed NHL entry-level contract with the Utah Hockey Club, has suited up in 56 games with the Americans this season recording four goals, 12 assists and a plus-eight rating in the plus-minus department. The Fort St. James, B.C., product spent his first four WHL campaigns with the Prince Albert Raiders appearing in 185 regular season games recording 10 goals and 20 assists. Goldsmith was traded to the Americans on July 24, 2024.

The WHL said further updates on the condition of Goldsmith will be provided as they are available.

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