Saskatoon Blades hit 50 wins, capture Scotty Munro trophy, and more

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What a weekend.

The Saskatoon Blades celebrated the end of the Western Hockey League’s regular season in style.

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Not only did the Blades hit 50 wins and capture the Scotty Munro Memorial trophy as the WHL team with the most points for the regular season, a number of individual players hit milestones and were in the spotlight over the weekend.

On Saturday night, before an announced crowd of 13,000 fans at SaskTel Centre, Anaheim Ducks prospect Egor Sidorov reached the 50-goal mark and rookie Evan Gardner recorded his fourth shutout of the season in a 5-0 win over provincial rival Prince Albert Raiders.

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Team captain Trevor Wong recorded a goal and an assist Saturday to hit the 100-point plateau with 101 points for the season.

On Friday, the Blades officially clinched first place overall and the Scotty Munro trophy with a 5-1 victory over the same Raiders in Prince Albert.

Those two teams will meet in the first round of the WHL playoffs. That best-of-seven series begins Thursday at SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon. Game 2 goes on Good Friday. Both games begin at 7 p.m.

Games 3 and 4 are slated for Prince Albert on Tuesday, April 2 and Wednesday, April 3.

Most wins since 2011

Saskatoon finished the regular season with a 50-13-2-3 record and 105 points, three points better than the Prince George Cougars at 49-15-1-3.

It was only the third time in franchise history that the Blades reached 50 wins for a season, and first time since the 2010-11 campaign.

The Blades finished the season with a league-best 29-4-1 record on home ice, and will now enjoy home-ice advantage throughout the upcoming WHL playoffs.

Saskatoon also finished the regular season with the sixth-best power play in the league, operating at a 26.1 proficiency.

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However, the Blades’ penalty-kill unit ranked No. 1 in the WHL with an 86.1 efficiency, allowing only 29 power-play goals against in 68 games. That set a new league record with the fewest power play goals against, eclipsing the previous mark of 30 set by the Everett Silvertips in 2003.

Red-hot rookie ‘tender

With his shutout Saturday, Gardner finished the regular season with the league’s best goals-against average and save percentage.

He posted a 21-5-0 record, 1.91 GAA and .927 save-percentage this season to give the Blades the top-goaltending tandem in the league.

Veteran netminder Austin Elliot had a 29-8-2 record, 2.39 save-percentage and .904 save-percentage this season. Both goalies recorded four shutouts.

Nifty 50: 50 wins, 50 goals

There were only 34 seconds remaining in the season when Sidorov scored his 50th goal of the season to cap off Saturday’s win.

Wong, Rowan Calvert, Easton Armstrong and Fraser Minten also scored for the Blades, who led 1-0 and 2-0 by periods and capitalized on three of seven power play opportunities. Shots were even at 27 apiece.

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Forward Zach Olsen, who was taken 29th overall in the 2023 WHL Prospects Draft, made his Blades debut. The Blades also had rookies Brayden Klimpke, William James, Hudson Kibblewhite and Morgan Tastad in the lineup.

Tanner Molendyk, Ben Saunderson, Vaughn Watterodt, Lukas Hansen, Misha Volotovskii and Carter Herman were all scratched from the lineup.

Overagers’ swan song

Saturday was the final regular-season game for the Blades’ three overagers: defenceman Charlie Wright and forwards Wong and Armstrong.

Wright caps off his WHL career with 15 goals and 89 assists for 104 points in 256 regular-season games. He was selected 70th overall in the 2018 WHL Draft.

Armstrong notched a goal and two assists in Saturday’s win to put him at 99 WHL career points (60 goals, 39 assists) in 210 games.

In 265 WHL career games during the regular season, Wong finishes with 72 goals and 188 assists for 260 points. He led the league in assists this season with 86, six better than Saskatoon native and recent NHL Minnesota Wild signee Riley Heidt at 80.

Beam them up, Scotty

On Friday — when the Blades secured the Scotty Munro trophy with a 5-1 victory over the Raiders in Prince Albert — Brandon Lisowsky had a pair of goals for the Blades, who outshot the Raiders 37-20 and led 3-1 and 4-1 by periods.

Molendyk, Volotovskii and Rhett Melnyk also scored for Saskatoon.

Elliott made 19 saves in the win. Max Hildebrand stopped 32 of 37 shots in Prince Albert’s net.

dzary@postmedia.com

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