The first of five meetings between the Saskatoon Blades and Regina Pats did not disappoint. It was a tightly contested affair and both teams were not shy about giving the other a little extra shove when the referee wasn’t looking. The Pats didn’t have nearly as much firepower heading into the game – only one player had three goals on the season. The Blades, on the other hand, had four players with three or more goals and two over 10 points. On paper, Saskatoon had this game in the bag.
Yet, Regina came out with a simple, defensive game that put the Blades on their heels and led to an early first-period goal. The Blades evened it on the power play with a beautiful goal from Rowan Calvert, and five minutes later, just as the penalty kill was ending, Ben Riche picked up the puck after leaving the box and easily put it by goalie Kelton Pyne.
But the Pats weren’t finished. Eight minutes into the second period, Cole Temple was given just enough space to pull off a sneaky move in front of the net to tie the game. The score remained tied at two until midway through the third period when former Blades prospect Dayton Deschamps made it 3-2 with his first goal in the Western Hockey League (WHL). But the Blades refused to give up, and with the goalie out, Tyler Parr evened up the game, allowing Brandon Lisowsky to end it in overtime with his first goal of the season.
It wasn’t a pretty win, but two points are two points, and the Blades now sit 7-1-1 to rank first in the Eastern Conference and second in the league. It’s a very surprising start for the young roster, who were expected to be competitive but not dominate like they did last season. Here are three takeaways from last night’s 4-3 victory.
Blades Need to be More Aggressive
One of the big reasons the Blades fell behind twice throughout the game was their lack of aggressiveness. “Was tonight our best game? No, it wasn’t even close to Blades hockey and what we’re capable of doing,” said head coach Dan DaSilva after the game. “But we’re going to take some lessons out of this one, and we know that we have better.”
“I thought our breakouts were really slow. I found us going east-west a lot, doing our controlled breakout a lot. We saw setting up behind the net and swinging and all that stuff. We didn’t play as fast as we wanted to. I also found on our rush we didn’t get pucks below the hash marks and really establish our forecheck and our offensive…
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