Blades put Warriors in 2-0 hole as series moves to Moose Jaw

The Saskatoon Blades hold the power in their first round Western Hockey League (WHL) playoff series against the Moose Jaw Warriors after a 3-1 win on Saturday at Sasktel Centre.

The win gives the Blades a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven-series after Friday’s come-from-behind 3-2 overtime win.

After letting both games slip away in the final period, head coach Tim Hunter and the rest of the Moose Jaw Warriors feel they could easily be the team holding a commanding lead in the series.

“They’ve earned one goal in this series,” Hunter said before detailing each of the Blades goals in the two games.

“They’re the favourite. We go home and win our games at home, come back for Game 5 and see how we stand.”

Blades head coach Mitch Love was rather critical for a coach that took control of his first playoff series.

“Well, we got the necessary work done at home,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t really like our game tonight. We looked very unorganized.

“It wasn’t pretty tonight, guys.”

Saskatoon was able to score the game’s first goal a night after digging themselves into a two-goal deficit a night earlier.

A Moose Jaw line change 11:55 into the second period left three Blades forwards skating in on Warriors goaltender Adam Evanoff unopposed before Max Gerlach wasted little time to shoot it glove side for the lead.

“Interesting line change by their d-men,” he said of his first of two goals on the night. “Obviously a bit of miscommunication there.”

Saskatoon was able to cling to that one-goal lead in a game that had a very different look from Friday as scoring chances were hard to come by in the opening 40 minutes.

The Warriors were able to capitalize on a string of Blades penalties in the third period. Carson Denomie scored his first goal of the post-season, placing a shot over the blocker of Blades goaltender Nolan Maier on the power play after some nifty work along the boards by defenceman Josh Brook to give Denomie some space.

The Blades’ game-winning goal would come less than five miuntes later on an errant shot from Dawson Davidson that would ricochet off the back boards and settle onto Gerlach’s stick in time to beat Evanoff to the wide-open net.

Brook joined Hunter in thinking a few bounces in their favour would give the series an entirely different outlook.

“Tough bounces cost us tonight,” he said. “I think we had a solid game. A couple bounces go our way and that game is ours.”

The series now shifts to Moose Jaw for Game 3 on Tuesday. Game 4 goes on Wednesday.

Both coaches understand the importance of winning the next game.

“They were more energized than we were and we got to start better in Game 3,” Love said. “I just felt like we had better ways to do things as individuals and we got to sharpen that up if we want to go down there and win some hockey games.”

“You learn lessons as you go through each game,” Hunter said of his team’s ability to get back into the series. “That’s why you play a seven-game series.”

“We’ll see what we can do in Moose Jaw.”