Blades Salvage Single Point in Victoria, But Let a Second One Slip Away

The Saskatoon Blades were in good shape to record a fifth straight victory over Victoria Sunday night, before the Royals rallied for a 5-4 shootout triumph.

Brandon Lisowsky (pictured) and Tyler Parr gave the Bridge City Bunch a 2-0 advantage after the first period and the two-goal lead remained after 40 minutes as Ben Saunderson negated a Markus Loponen tally for the home side. The Blue and Gold were fully in command with a 4-1 lead after rookie centre Cooper Williams tallied early in the third period – a score that was the same with 11 minutes left when Victoria started their comeback. Loponen scored a second goal and Macklin product Cole Reschny notched two goals, the second one with 98 seconds remaining and the Royals utilizing an extra attacker. The game required four rounds of a shootout before Saskatoon product Logan Pickford connected for his second winner in the penalty shot-format of the young season. Victoria, now 9-4-2 for the season, out-shot the now 10-3-2 Blades 32-28 as the Bridge City Bunch had Ethan McCallum make his debut in goal. A couple of Blades’ milestone notes…defenceman Tanner Molendyk recorded his 100th career W-H-L assist…all in a Saskatoon jersey, while Lisowsky notched his 127th career goal, all with the Blades, moving him into 12th place on the all-time franchise list – ahead of Paul Buczkowski. The Blue and Gold are 0-1-1 on their B-C road trip, which continues Tuesday in Prince George. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Les Lazaruk’s Post-Game Show interview with head coach Dan Da Silva plus the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L…..

SASKATOON Goals SASKATOON PLAYERS (plus) VICTORIA PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 1st 4:40 PP  8-23-19 1st 16:17  20-2 2 4 8 19 20 3 4 8 19 28 2nd 9:44  2-24-8 2 8 19 20 24 3 7 19 22 23 3rd 2:03  25-86 4 21 23 25 86 3 4 6 25 28

VICTORIA Goals VICTORIA PLAYERS (plus) SASKATOON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 2nd 9:13  20-25-6 6 14 20 24 25 17 21 23 52 86 3rd 9:07  7-23-3 3 7 12 19 23 4 11 21 36 88 3rd 16:57  20-6-25 6 14 20 22 25 2 4 23 25 86 3rd 18:22  7-3-23 3 7 19 22 23 25 2 11 17 21 28