SASKATOON — The resilient Saskatoon Blades are headed to the Western Hockey League Eastern Conference finals.
On Tuesday night, the Blades beat the Red Deer Rebels, 5-2, to complete what the squad called on its Twitter account the “reverse sweep”. After falling into a 3-0 hole in the best of seven conference semifinal series, the Saskatoon team battled back to win four straight and advance. They are only the third team in WHL history to win a seven-game series after trailing 3-0.
The schedule for Eastern Conference finals is:
- Game 1: April 28 in Winnipeg
- Game 2: April 29 in Winnipeg
- Game 3: May 2 in Saskatoon
- Game 4: May3 in Saskatoon
- Game 5: May 5 in Winnipeg
- Game 6: May 7 in Saskatoon
- Game 7: May 9 in Winnipeg
The Ice and Blades finished first and second in the conference regular season. The Winnipeg team had a league-best record of 57-10-1-0. The Blades were certainly formidable themselves with a 48-15-4-1 record. In the regular season, the Ice won four of the team’s six games against each other.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Ice swept the Medicine Hat Tigers, 4-0. Facing a 2-1 series deficit to the Moose Jaw Warriors in the second round, the Winnipeg team had three straight victories to win the series, 4-2. The Blades beat the Regina Pats, 4-3, in the first round.
During the playoffs, Egor Sidorov has paced the Blades with nine goals. Trevor Wong leads the way with 14 assists.
Matthew Savoie, a Buffalo Sabres draft pick, leads the ice with nine goals and 18 points in 10 games. Arizona Coyotes draft pick Conor Geekie racked up 10 of his 13 postseason points in the Warriors’ series.
Blades 5, Rebels 2
In front of 9,489, the Rebels took a 1-0 lead on the road on a Hunter Mayo goal in the first period. The Blades knotted things up about three minutes later on Conner Roulette’s second goal of the postseason. At the 5:41 mark of the second frame, Spencer Shugrue’s got his second of the playoffs to make it 2-1 for Saskatoon. A couple minutes later, Ryker Singer knotted the game at 2-2.
In the third period, Shugrue scored again to give the Blades the lead. Less than a minute later, Roulette also got his third goal of the playoffs. Later in the third, Vaughn Watterodt added an empty net goal for the Blades.
Austin Elliott backstopped the Blade to victory with 23 saves. Kyle Kelsey also had 23 stops for Red Deer.
