Gardner Nearly Makes Something Out of Blades Effort in Kelowna

Evan Gardner (pictured) came this close to stealing at least one point in the standings for the Saskatoon Blades Friday night.

Unfortunately, the Bridge City Bunch played their worst game of the first 17 this season, yet only dropped a 2-1 decision in Kelowna. Gardner made 33 saves as the Blue and Gold was out-shot 35-15 and managed just one shot on goal in the third period. Despite that, it took a Tij Iginla goal with 4:08 remaining in the third period for the Rockets to get the victory and improve their record to 6-7-1. The Blades led for a few minutes in the first period on a goal by defenceman Grayden Siepmann, but Andrew Cristall responded with a short-handed goal. From there, Kelowna owned the territorial play, but were denied by Gardner time and time again. Saskatoon is now 1-2-1 on their B-C road trip, 11-4-2 overall for the season, and finish up the swing Saturday night in Kamloops. First face off is 8 o’clock with CJWW’s broadcast beginning at 7:45 p.m. with the Pre-Game Show. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Les Lazaruk’s Post-Game Show interview with head coach Dan Da Silva and the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L…..

SASKATOON Goals SASKATOON PLAYERS (plus) KELOWNA PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 1st 7:54  21-2-86 2 17 21 72 86 9 17 23 24 27

KELOWNA Goals KELOWNA PLAYERS (plus) SASKATOON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 1st 13:22 SH  28-4 4 8 11 28 4 8 19 20 23 3rd 15:52  11-28-4 4 7 8 11 28 2 3 8 19 20