By Les Lazaruk
The facts are a tough pill to swallow for the Saskatoon Blades. They will finish the 2017-18 WHL regular-season with more points than five of the six teams in the Central Division and with more wins than four teams that will compete in the playoffs, starting Thursday.
Alas, the bridge city bunch won’t be in the post-season for a fifth straight year!
Max Gerlach’s second career hat-trick gave the bridge city bunch a 4-1 lead, but the blue and gold would need an empty-net goal from graduating captain Evan Fiala to hold off a late Prince Albert rush in a 5-4 victory Saturday.
Ironically, Gerlach’s first WHL three-goal game also came at SaskTel Centre…but as a member of the Medicine Hat Tigers on November 26, 2016 in an 8-2 triumph over the Blades.
“Everybody is on a high right now, three-game win streak. We beat a really good team in Swift Current (Wednesday) and then, obviously, two big wins against P.A. so it feels good right now,” explained the product of Flower Mound, Texas. “But, as a couple of days go by, (missing the playoffs) is going to wear on you a little bit. Hopefully this lessens the sting and gives everyone high hopes for next year.”
“Next year” is a phrase heard far too often by Saskatoon fans of the local major junior franchise. Only three other teams have had a run of non-playoff futility as long as the bridge city bunch’s current run of five straight years being out of the post-season. But, Saturday night’s win over the arch-rival Raiders did come before the largest crowd of the season at 9,624!
Defenceman Mark Rubinchik scored the other goal for the blue and gold, who finished with a record of 35-33-4 for 74 points.
Belarussian defenceman Sergei Sapego tallied twice in the final two minutes to make the final 40 seconds of the contest interesting, after Fiala had scored into an empty P.A. net to make the score 5-2 for the Blades. Spencer Moe and Curtis Miske also notched markers for the Raiders, who out-shot Saskatoon 35-32. Prince Albert will go into an opening playoff round series against the Moose Jaw Warriors with a regular-season record of 32-27-13 and winless in their last four games (0-2-2) after having made a furious rush (9-0-2) to zip past the bridge city bunch and into the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot.
The game marked the end of the WHL careers of the three Blades’ overage players, Fiala, left winger Braylon Shmyr and goaltender Tyler Brown, the latter in goal for all three of Saskatoon’s three consecutive wins to finish off the campaign.
Pacman Points – Only division pennant-winner Medicine Hat will finish the season with more points than the Bridge City Bunch among the teams in the Central Division.
The Raiders (32), Lethbridge (33), Red Deer (27) and Seattle (34) have all qualified for the WHL playoffs with fewer victories than the blue and gold’s 35.
In missing the post-season for a fifth straight season, the dubious company the Blades are keeping includes the Cougars’ franchise (Victoria and Prince George) with seven consecutive seasons of being out of the playoffs between 1990 and 1996; the Lethbridge Hurricanes missed six straight years (2010-15); the Medicine Hat Tigers were on the outside, looking in, for five consecutive seasons (1998-2002). Even the Brandon Wheat Kings, who never seem to miss the playoffs, had a sad sack run of being out of the post-season for seven of eight campaigns between 1985 and 1992.
Speaking of small consolation, once again Saskatoon saw their win and point total go up from the previous season for a fourth consecutive season. The bridge city bunch plummeted to 16 wins and just 37 points in the campaign after hosting the 2013 Memorial Cup. Those totals rose in 2014-15 to 19 wins and 42 points, then to 26 wins and 56 points in 2015-16; 28 and 65 in 2016-17 and finally to this year’s totals of 35 wins and 74 points.
Despite the large turnout of 9,624 for the final regular-season game, the Blades total home attendance was down from the 2016-17 campaign. The announced numbers for 2017-18 ended up at 138,719 compared with 143,027 the season before…a per game drop of 120.
As for the Saturday contest, Saskatoon was 1-for-3 on the power play while P.A. was 0-for-3.
The bridge city bunch won six of eight games in the season series against the Raiders and extended their home-ice dominance over Prince Albert to 15 consecutive triumphs, dating back to September 20, 2014.
Gerlach’s hat-trick gave him eight goals amongst 14 points in his final seven games.
The blue and gold went back to their top lineup for the finale at home, sitting out defencemen Randen Schmidt and Zach Ashton along with forwards Tyler Lees, Alec Zawatsky and Ethan Mack.
The Raiders were without right winger Parker Kelly, suspended by the WHL for the final game of the regular-season after the 18-year-old Ottawa Senators’ free agent signee speared Blades’ centre Kirby Dach in a sensitive area at the conclusion of Friday’s 2-1 Saskatoon victory at Prince Albert. The Raiders continued to be minus right winger Brett Leason because of an upper-body injury while head coach Marc Habscheid chose to rest defencemen Vojtech Budik and Brayden Pachal. Saskatoon product Cohner Saleski made his WHL debut with P.A. while Montmarte, Sk, native Adam Herold was also called up for the game as an affiliate player to round out the Raiders’ blue-line. Saleski was Prince Albert’s first round selection, 17th overall, in the 2017 WHL Bantam Draft. The 15-year-old played for the Saskatoon Contacts of the Saskatchewan Midget AAA League this season. Herold, a 16-year-old, played in the same loop with the Regina Pat-Canadians.
Gerlach led all players in the game with six shots on goal while Josh Paterson chipped in with five shots for the Bridge City Bunch while Eric Pearce was the only Raiders’ skater not to register at least one shot on goal…their leader being Sapego with four.
In the faceoff circle, the blue and gold won 30 of 56 draws, led by Chasde Wouters, who captured possession on 14 of 19 faceoffs. Kody McDonald and Sean Montgomery topped P.A. at 50 per cent in the circle…McDonald winning 10 of 20 trips to the dot while Montgomery was 6 for 12.
