Bussin’ Blades win four straight in the WHL

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Bus legs? Road weary?

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Not exactly.

The Saskatoon Blades celebrated back-to-back wins 24 hours and 600 kilometres apart over the weekend.

In doing so, the Blades extended their winning streak to four games and moved back into a tie with the Prince Albert Raiders for top spot in the Western Hockey League’s East Division.

Saskatoon is 27-16-3-3 with 60 points after the weekend, which included 1,200 kilometres of bus travel to and from Brandon, Manitoba followed by a game the next day in Saskatoon.

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On Saturday, Hayden Harsanyi and Tanner Scott each tallied twice to pace the Blades to a 5-3 victory over the visiting Regina Pats.

“I thought the first 40 minutes were great — I was pleasantly surprised by the start,” said Blades head coach Dan DaSilva. “Then I think there was a combination of things there at the start of the third period, with the ugly situation at the end of the second with (an injury to Brayden) Klimpke, I think, rattled the guys a little bit — obviously they care about their teammates quite a bit, concerned for their well-beings and that’s not always easy to move on from although we tried to message that but it’s just is what it is — and I think that’s when the bus ride hit us. That late arrival (back from Brandon), we were running on adrenaline for the first 40 and then that’s when it hit their legs.

“So it’s a learning lesson for us, how to handle those situations.”

Kazden Mathies had the other goal for Saskatoon, which led 3-1 and 5-1 by periods.

Ethan McCallum made 24 saves for the Blades, who outshot the Pats 30-27.

“That’s part of our mentality, the way we’ve been playing the entire season, getting contributions from everyone, new players and old — we had different scorers from (Friday night), guys stepping up which is phenomenal with (Scott and Harsanyi) both having two goals, which is great to see.

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“It does take time. It’s a month after the trade deadline and these things take time. You see the chemistry forming on the ice, off the ice. The unfortunate part now is we have to deal with some injuries. It seems it’s never-ending right with injured guys. The ferris wheel goes on and on but we’re going to handle that like pros and expect the other guys to step up now.”

Both teams were scoreless on two power play tries.

One night earlier, the Blades edged the Brandon Wheat Kings 3-2 in overtime.

Rookie Cooper Williams notched the game-winner at the 4:42 mark of OT. William James and Hudson Kibblewhite had the other goals for Saskatoon, which outshot Brandon 42-41.

McCallum made 39 saves in the Blades win.

Saskatoon went 1-for-6 on the power play. Brandon was 1-for-4.

BLADE BITS: Attendance was 4,425 … Three stars were 1) Scott, 2) Harsanyi and 3) Mathies … Blades defenceman Brayden Klimpke (upper body) and forward Hudson Kibblewhite (lower body) were both injured in Saturday’s game and did not return … The Blades return to action Tuesday night against the Eastern Conference-leading Medicine Hat Tigers (33-16-3-1) with forner Blades Tanner Molendyk and Misha Volotovskii, Game-time is 7 p.m. at SaskTel Centre.

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