By Les Lazaruk
It wasn’t a masterpiece, but the Saskatoon Blades will take the two points.
“We’ll take the win. There’s too many things to say that, probably, I didn’t like,” said Head Coach Dean Brockman after the Blades nipped the young Red Deer Rebels 3-2 in front of 3,169 fans at SaskTel Centre. “Our effort was just okay. We thought it was going to be easy. I didn’t think we were mentally prepared, either, to play tonight.
“You’re going to have those games, especially at this time of the year when everybody wonders where they’re going (because of the upcoming WHL trade deadline on Wednesday) or if they’re staying or whatever the case may be. But, good teams find a way to win those games and good for us.”
Defenceman Jake Kustra snuck in from the blue line to the lip of the crease to the right of Red Deer goaltender Riley Lamb and steered in a seeing-eye backhand pass from Braylon Shmyr for the game-winning goal at 10:35 of the third period. Shmyr opened the scoring, giving him six multi-point games in a row. Brad Goethals evened the score late in the second period after Saskatoon products Reese Johnson and Alex Morozoff tallied against the Bridge City Bunch.
The Blades are a good team, right now. The victory was their sixth straight, the longest winning streak for the franchise since the second half of the 2012-13 season when Saskatoon’s MasterCard Memorial Cup host team captured 18-in-a-row. Their overall record of 20-17-3 fives them 43 points, tied with idle Regina for the first wildcard playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and with one game in hand.
After stopping 63 of 69 shots in a 6-3 loss to visiting Moose Jaw back on Wednesday, Red Deer goaltender Riley Lamb only faced 27 shots while Nolan Maier stopped 21 of 23 Rebels shots. For the 16-year-old Yorkton, Sask. product, he has been in goal for all six consecutive Bridge City Bunch triumphs and all of the victories in a run in which the Blue and Gold have won nine of their last 10 outings.
The Blades return to action Saturday as another Central Division team invades SaskTel Centre. The Kootenay Ice will play their first of four head-to-head meetings against Saskatoon.
Pacman Points – The Bridge City Bunch are now 6-3-0 against Central Division teams. All three losses coming to the division-leading Medicine Hat Tigers.
Shmyr was the only member of his line to extend his consecutive game points streak which now sits at six games, during which he has six goals and 11 assists for 17 points.
There were only three minor penalties called by the referee duo of Adam Bloski and Troy Murray, two of them that have to be called as defending players shot the puck directly over the glass and into the crowd from inside their blue line. One player from each team was guilty of the infraction.
Prior to the game, Red Deer (10-21-8) completed a trade with the Moose Jaw Warriors. Moose Jaw picked up 19-year old defenceman Brandon Schuldhaus and a fourth round selection in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft from the Rebels. Heading to the Rebels are 19-year old defenceman Colin Paradis, a second round selection in the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft and a second round pick in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft.
Between the trading of Schuldhaus and 20-year-old right winger Mason McCarty coming down with illness, Red Deer was forced to go with only 17 skaters. One of those was 16-year-old Alex Morozoff. The Saskatoon product has been called up for the rest of the season from the Saskatoon Contacts of the Saskatchewan Midget AAA League. The Rebels were also without centre Kristian Reichel (Team Czech Republic, World Junior Championship), left winger Brandon Hagel (Upper Body injury) and defenceman Sam Pouliot (left behind in Red Deer).
The Blades had just 18 available skaters with defenceman Libor Hajek winding up his World Junior Championship experience as Reichel’s team-mate with the Czechs. In addition, right wingers Caleb Fantillo (lower body) and Kirby Dach (upper body) continue to be sidelined by injury.
Saskatoon failed to connect on their only power play chance of the evening while Red Deer was 1-for-2 with the man advantage.
The busiest individual shooters were Shmyr and Alec Zawatsky for the Bridge City Bunch, each with three shots on goal. Rebels winger Austin Pratt led all players with four shots on goal.
The Blades won 29 of 46 faceoffs with Brandon Machado winning all six of his trips to the faceoff dot. Johnson captured possession on nine of 20 draws for Red Deer.
