Blades offence cooled off by Ice in Game 1 of Eastern Conference final

The Saskatoon Blades have found themselves in familiar territory once again.

The Blades dropped Game 1 of the best-of-seven WHL Eastern Conference final, falling 3-0 to the Winnipeg Ice on Friday night.

So far in the WHL playoffs, Saskatoon has lost Game 1 in all three of the series it played in — Round 1 versus Regina, Round 2 versus Red Deer and now Round 3 versus Winnipeg.

Saskatoon tried to keep the offensive touch going after scoring five against Red Deer in Game 7 on Tuesday.

But everything was knotted at zeroes until there were five minutes left in the first period.

That’s when Ice defenceman Ben Zloty danced around Blades forward Conner Roulette on the blue line and fired a backhand shot in the slot past Ethan Chadwick to open the scoring.

The Blades did have an opportunity to even things up in the first when they were given a power play a minute after the opening goal.

But it became the worst-case scenario for Saskatoon.

Zack Ostapchuk doubled the Ice lead when he was given a short-handed penalty shot and made no mistake by firing a wrist shot past Chadwick.

That gave Winnipeg a two-goal lead going into the second period. And the Ice wouldn’t allow Saskatoon to get back into the game after Carson Lambos scored on a wrist shot from the blue line.

But Winnipeg did give Saskatoon opportunities to tie it up by taking three penalties after its third goal, but the Blades went 0-for-4 with the man advantage on Friday.

Daniel Hauser only had to make 16 saves for his first shutout of the WHL playoffs.

The Blades will quickly have to put this game behind them in order to avoid going down 0-2 for the third consecutive time.

Game 2 takes place in Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon with puck drop at 3 p.m.