Blades Go Into Christmas Break Battling, But Coming Up Short Against Wheat Kings

Losers of six straight, yet still sitting in first place in the W-H-L’s East Division – that’s how the Saskatoon Blades enter a 12-day Christmas break following Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Brandon Wheat Kings at SaskTel Centre.

A turnover early in the first period led to the Bridge City Bunch allowing the opening goal for a fourth straight game while another turnover led to the game-winning goal with less than six minutes to go in the third period as the Wheat Kings snapped a four-game head-to-head losing streak to the Blue and Gold and ended the Blades streak of home games without losing in regulation time at 20. Wheaties’ defenceman Luke Shipley scored the winning and insurance goals as the game scoring went in twos – Brandon scoring the first two goals, Brandon Lisowsky notching the next two for Saskatoon to set the stage for Shipley’s heroics. Lisowsky’s brace of tallies give him 18 for the season and 139 for his career, moving him alongside and past Josh Nicholls for sixth place on the Bridge City Bunch’s all-time goals list. The Wheat Kings are 15-9-4 and finish their pre-Christmas schedule Tuesday at home against Moose Jaw. The Blue and Gold’s next game is, also, against the Warriors as they’ll try to improve on their 17-10-4 record on December 27 – the Blades’ Teddy Bear Toss game. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Post-Game Show interviews with head coach Dan Da Silva plus defenceman and captain Ben Saunderson as well as the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L…..

BRANDON Goals BRANDON PLAYERS (plus) SASKATOON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 1st 1:51  88 10 17 55 84 88 2 3 11 17 28 1st 11:30 PP  62-72-8 3rd 14:04  27 5 27 72 91 2 4 8 19 3rd 19:55 EN  27-62 8 27 62 72 88 8 9 19 21 25 28

SASKATOON Goals SASKATOON PLAYERS (plus) BRANDON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 2nd 8:33  8-19-4 2 4 8 19 20 7 62 72 84 91 3rd 8:37 PP  8-11-21