Blades Clinch Seventh Straight Playoff Appearance With 30th Win

It was the Saskatoon Blades, and not the Penticton Vees, who earned a milestone with a victory Wednesday night.

Thanks to 27 saves from Evan Gardner, plus a goal and two assists from Hunter Laing, the Bridge City Bunch clinched a spot in the W-H-L playoffs for a seventh straight season and reached the 30-win plateau for an eighth consecutive campaign with a 5-3 victory over the expansion club in the first-ever meeting between them. Penticton was looking to record a 38th win in their first W-H-L season, which would’ve broken a 43-year-old C-H-L record for wins by an expansion team, set by Longueil of the Quebec Maritimes Junior League. For a third straight game, the Blue and Gold scored first and never fell behind. They beat former team-mate Ethan McCallum three times on their first nine shots, relied on Gardner to keep the B-C Division leaders at bay, before closing out the game with a second power play goal by Laing and an empty net tally from Elias Pul. Jack Kachkowski also scored on a man advantage as the Blades scored for a sixth straight game on the power play. Tyler Parr and Cooper Williams notched the other goals for Saskatoon with Williams chipping an assist as well. The 30-23-6 Bridge City Bunch closed to within three points of idle Brandon for second place in the East Division and fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The Blue and Gold are 4-0-1 against visiting B-C Division teams and will host Prince George Friday in the final inter-conference game of the season. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Post-Game Show interviews with head coach Dan Da Silva, Laing and centre Triston Mitchell-McElhone plus the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L website…..

PENTICTON Goals PENTICTON PLAYERS (plus) SASKATOON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 2nd 9:47  29-15-9 6 9 11 15 29 11 20 37 47 77 2nd 15:50  27-2 2 4 19 27 51 4 11 25 36 37 3rd 19:42  19 18 19 27 51 52 13 25 36 41 67

SASKATOON Goals SASKATOON PLAYERS (plus) PENTICTON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 1st 15:24 PP  37-4-71 1st 18:48  16-27 4 11 13 16 27 6 9 11 15 29 2nd 7:31  20-77-41 4 20 41 77 88 4 21 52 91 92 3rd 17:56 PP  27-23-11 3rd 18:29 EN  88-27-16 3 4 16 27 88 2 6 15 21 83 91