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The WHL’s Saskatoon Blades have completed a historic comeback.
Saskatoon beat the visiting Red Deer Rebels 5-2 on Tuesday to win a best-of-seven Eastern Conference second-round series in seven games. It was the Blades’ fourth straight win after they lost the first three games of the series.
“(I’m) just incredibly proud of the guys. You have to have a tight-knit group and a ton of belief. You have to put your arms around each other instead of pointing fingers when you go down 3-0, and that’s what we did,” Blades head coach Brennan Sonne said after the game.
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The Blades became just the third team in league history to come back from three games down to win a best-of-seven series. They join the 1996 Spokane Chiefs (who rallied against the Portland Winterhawks) and the 2013 Kelowna Rockets (who beat the Seattle Thunderbirds).
With the win, the Blades advance to the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final against the Winnipeg Ice.
It was the second straight seven-game series of the 2023 post-season for the Blades, who lost the first two games against Regina before rallying to eliminate Connor Bedard and the Pats in Game 7.
The contest Tuesday at SaskTel Centre didn’t get off to the best start for the Blades as Red Deer opened the scoring. Hunter Mayo fired a wrist shot from the slot past Austin Elliott to give the Rebels the early lead.
But Saskatoon responded as Conner Roulette tied it after spinning away from two Red Deer defenders for his second goal of the playoffs.
Then Blades defenceman Spencer Shugrue cleaned up a rebound after Roulette’s original shot banked off the end boards to give Saskatoon a 2-1 lead.
Less than two minutes later, though, the Rebels made sure the score was even going into the third period. After a Red Deer dump-in, Ryker Singer snapped a shot past Elliott to make it 2-2 going into the third.
But the final frame was when the Blades put the game to rest, scoring two goals in 40 seconds to take a commanding 4-2 lead. Shugrue and Roulette each found the back of the net for the second time on the night.
First Shugrue intercepted a Rebels clearing attempt and then converted a pass from Jayden Wiens. Shugrue has three career goals in the regular season and that was his third in this year’s playoffs, all in a Game 7.
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After scoring two goals on Tuesday, Shugrue was still focused on the team’s success.
“It obviously feels good, but it feels better as a franchise to get to the third round,” he said.
Then Roulette took advantage of Kalan Lind breaking his stick and completed a give-and-go with Egor Sidorov to give Saskatoon a two-goal lead.
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Roulette, who scored 24 goals during the regular season, had only one in the playoffs entering Tuesday’s game.
He hopes scoring two Tuesday leads to him contributing more next series.
“Throughout the playoffs I just wanted to find my rhythm. I think I started off a little slow, but such a great team (and) such a great coaching staff were there to help me and push me to play my best,” Roulette said.
Vaughn Watterodt scored an empty-net goal to seal it and end Red Deer’s season.
It was a tough loss for the Rebels and head coach Steve Konowalchuk thought they could’ve been on the winning side.
“It’s a hard one. I thought our guys played a pretty hard game, I thought we played a lot of time in their end (and) I thought we had some chances. They’re opportunistic and they have some skill that doesn’t need a lot of chances and I think that was the difference,” Konowalchuk said.
“We all want to win. We don’t feel good right now and there’s not a guy in the locker room that does, coaching staff as well. But it wasn’t a lack of effort.”
It was quite the opposite feeling in the Blades’ locker room where Sonne said his team didn’t stop working to recreate what most did growing up.
“This is the stuff you dream of as a kid on the (outdoor rink) or playing street hockey: ‘It’s Game 7! Tie game! Last 10 minutes!’ This is what we dream of. This doesn’t come around hardly ever, if at all,” Sonne said.
While the Blades have battled back in each of their first two series, they’ll have a tough test coming up in Winnipeg. The Ice was the WHL’s regular-season champions with 115 points.
“You can’t go down 0-4 because then it’s over, so we’ve got to make sure we avoid 0-4,” Sonne said with a smirk.
But he knows the Blades can’t take Winnipeg lightly.
“They’re elite everywhere,” he said of the Ice. “We need to rest up a little bit and just bring our best. Like I said, we just ask that (the players) work and if they put it all out there, then let the chips fall where they may. But if they work, we’re good.”
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final is scheduled for Friday, with the first two games to be played in Winnipeg before the series transitions to Saskatoon for games 3 and 4.
