Saskatoon sinks Moose Jaw 5-2
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| Chase Wutzke, left, battles Rowan Calvert for the puck. |
In a WHL regular season clash on Friday night at the SaskTel Centre, Wutzke, who is the star 19-year-old netminder for the Moose Jaw Warriors, looked for the longest time that he could potentially steal win despite his team being badly outplayed by the host Saskatoon Blades. Ultimately, Wutzke was handcuffed by Calvert, who is the Blades standout 20-year-old left-winger.
Calvert scored the Blades first goal, and with his side holding a slim 3-2 lead entering the third period, the long time WHL veteran closed out the contest completing a hat trick performance to give the Blades a 5-2 victory before a happy gathering of 4,843 spectators. He also now has exactly 30 goals on the campaign marking the first time he has hit the 30-goal plateau in his WHL career.
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| Chase Wutzke makes one of his 43 saves on Friday. |
The win was the second straight for the Blades who improved to 32-25-4-2 as they continue to build towards playing in the WHL Playoffs sitting sixth in the Eastern Conference. The Warriors fell to 21-34-5-2 to remain ninth in the Eastern Conference just, one standings point behind the Red Deer Rebels (23-34-2-2) for eighth place and the final post-season berth in the Conference. Red Deer has one game in hand on Moose Jaw.
The Blades stormed out of the gates in the first period holding a 20-3 edge in shots on goal. They exited the opening 20 minutes only holding a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal coming from Calvert.
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| Rowan Calvert had a hat trick to power the Blades to victory. |
While Wutzke was holding the fort in the opening frame making 19 saves for the visitors, Blades star netminder Evan Gardner, who turned 20-years-old in late January, had to come up with a big stop at the end of the stanza. With 47.3 seconds remaining in the first, Gardner swallowed up a close in chance from Warriors import left-winger Jan Trefny.
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| Rowan Calvert (#23) celebrates the first of his three goals. |
Just 39 seconds later, the Warriors 20-year-old star defenceman Aiden Ziprick fired home a point shot for a power-play goal that cut the Saskatoon lead to 2-1.
At that point, Wutzke was the main reason the contest didn’t get away from Moose Jaw. He would turn away Blades star import right-winger David Lewandowski, who was in alone on the Warriors net and attempted a backhand shot.
Wutzke would then stone Blades 18-year-old centre Kazden Mathies in close and reject Blades 17-year-old rookie centre Ben Bowtell on another in tight opportunity. Mathies would then get a breakaway opportunity only to be denied by a left pad stop by Wutzke.
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| Chase Wutzke (#35) stones David Lewandowski. |
That two-goal edge didn’t last long. Just 42 seconds later, Warriors standout 20-year-old left-winger Pavel McKenzie was sprung on a breakaway and he fired a mid-height shot stick side on Gardner to trim the Saskatoon edge to 3-2. That tally was the 17th marker of the season for McKenzie.
The Blades took that slim 3-2 advantage into the second intermission while holding a lopsided 35-10 edge in shots on goal.
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| Cooper Williams had the Blades second goal on Friday. |
Saskatoon then proceeded to get the dagger tallies to lock down the win. With 2:59 remaining in the third and working on a power play, Williams had the puck in the right faceoff circle in the Moose Jaw zone and put a shot pass towards the Warriors goal. Calvert deflected the puck home for his second goal of the contest and 29th marker of the campaign.
Just 23 seconds later, Calvert completed his hat trick firing a puck from his own zone into an empty Moose Jaw net for his 30th goal of the season to round out the 5-2 victory for the Blades. Calvert finished with nine goals in the Blades six encounters with the Warriors in the current regular season, and that included Friday’s hat trick performance and a hat trick in a win back in December.
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| The Blades celebrate a hat trick goal from Rowan Calvert (#23). |
McKenzie had an assist to go along with his goal.
With his hat trick, Calvert now has goals and points in three consecutive games recording five goals and one assist over that time.
The only bad news the Blade encountered came shortly after they went ahead 4-2, when 18-year-old sophomore defenceman Isaac Poll tried to check McKenzie into the boards, when McKenzie was rushing into the Saskatoon zone. While pinning McKenzie into the boards, Poll accidently drove his own head into the glass and went down on the ice.
Poll, who has a lengthy history with injuries, was helped off the ice and didn’t return.
The Warriors get back at it on Saturday when they return home to face the Lethbridge Hurricanes (7 p.m., Temple Gardens Centre).
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| The Blades celebrate their win on Friday night. |
“The Bridge City Bunch” will be looking to build off of strong performances in their past two outings as they only have five more regular season games remaining before entering the 2026 WHL Playoffs.
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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