The Saskatoon Blades and Prince Albert Raiders met at the SaskTel Centre for the second game in the division rivals’ Western Hockey League season-opening home-and-home series.
Played in front of an official attendance of 6,221 fans, the game was scoreless for the majority of the 60 minutes. It was P.A.’s Cole Fonstad who got the one and only goal in the third period, his first point of the season. Assisting on the goal was Aliaksei Protas, who now has a goal and an assist through two games.
Prince Albert head coach Marc Habscheid said the game definitely won’t go down as a Picasso in the history of the Blades vs. Raiders rivalry. However, he added it was a game and they got the win, which was all that mattered. With the win, P.A. improved to an overall record of 1-0-1.
Securing his first shutout as a Raider in the process was Boston Bilous, who stopped all 26 shots he faced. A number of them were high quality scoring chances.
“He was a big part of our team last year. We talked about that all the time. Boston didn’t play a lot but was big for our team. (He) always kept the guys up, never complained, always was team first, and now Boston gets his chance, and because he was such a good teammate, you can tell the guys want to play in front of him and want to do what they can to help him out, and when you’re a goaltender, that’s half the battle,” Habscheid said following the game.
Blades captain Chase Wouters was critical of his team following the loss and noted there were lots of rebounds laying around the net, which could have made it a different game.
“We got to find a way to get to the front of the net and battle there because that’s where you’re going to score goals,” Wouters said.
Saskatoon head coach Mitch Love echoed Wouters’ comments on needing to bring up their offensive game. However, he had some praise for the defensive corps.
“I thought our overall compete level defensively was better than last night; it was a little more consistent throughout the hockey game,” he said. “Where I didn’t really like our game was our offensive heart. I didn’t think we did enough to generate offense by going into hard areas or stopping and competing on pucks, and when you’re trying to play a team like that who does a real good job defensively, they’re going to make you earn your keep. So we’ve got a lot of room to grow in our offensive game.”
As for the Blades power play, the units went 0-for-4, after scoring on two of their chances the previous night.
Love said that while the power play had its looks, he thought it mirrored the five-on-five offense by looking for an extra pass instead of having a shooting mentality.
With the loss, the Blades have an overall record of 1-1 at the end of the WHL season opening weekend.
Saskatoon is off now until Friday, September 27th, when the team will welcome the Winnipeg ICE to the SaskTel Centre for their first meeting of the 2019-20 season. During the preseason, the Blades went 2-0 against the ICE in a two game mini-series.
Blades buzz:
Kyle Crnkovic was held off the score sheet for the second straight game and is still looking for his first point of the season, after averaging more than two points-per-game in the preseason. Elsewhere, Washington Capitals-drafted Eric Florchuk was out for this contest with an upper body injury and will meet with doctors this week for further evaluation. Finally, Saskatoon and Prince Albert will still meet another eight times this season.
