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The Saskatoon Blades saved its best effort for last after an exhausting weekend, besting the Prince Albert Raiders 1-0 Sunday afternoon at Sasktel Centre.
The Blades welcomed the country’s top ranked junior hockey team to town for its annual Teddy Bear Toss game after playing back-to-back games against the Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday and Saturday.
With exhaustion expected to creep up on the Blades, it would have been easy to assume the Raiders would run roughshod over their archrivals, but Saskatoon came ready to play with extra motivation on Sunday.
“I think I can speak for all the guys here,” said the lone goal scorer Tristen Robins. “It’s just straight motivation. When we play these guys it’s a rivalry obviously, but we really, really wanted to come out and win this game and that’s exactly what we did.”
After riding 19-game winning streak and entering Sunday registering at least a point in 22 straight games, the Raiders (28-2-0-1) have now lost two of its last four games.
Nolan Maier became the first goalie to shutout Prince Albert this season. He called Sunday’s win a statement game.
“With their confidence and their record going into this year, they don’t really feel like we’re a competition to them and I think we proved them wrong tonight,” he said. “This is a statement game to the whole league.”
Head coach Mitch Love is hoping to use this game as a fond memory later on in the season.
“We hadn’t played this team in a while. Our team is different than it was then,” Love said, pointing to his team’s 6-2 loss to the Raiders on Oct. 14. “We’ve ha an extra 22 games to learn some new systems and integrate some guys to how we want to play.”
“This is going to be a fun matchup all year long, and I hope we can use this the next time we play them after Christmas.”
After a scoreless first period that saw both teams landing 10 shots on goal, it was the rookie Robins firing a shot past Raiders goaltender Ian Scott on a two-on-one opportunity to send the teddy bears raining down on the ice just over five minutes into the second period.
Tristen Robins opens the scoring for @BladesHockey to send the teddies flying on #TeddyBearToss day @SaskTelCtr. #yxe #WHL pic.twitter.com/jTDDvg1rKH
— Keenan Sorokan (@KeenanSorokan) December 9, 2018
Play was delayed for several minutes as the 6,334 fans gathered at Sasktel Centre kept raining waves of teddy bears on the ice.
Prince Albert was able to keep Saskatoon from building a larger lead once play resumed, while also creating a series of scoring chances as they led in the shooting department 18-16, but trailed 1-0 on the scoreboard after two periods.
Saskatoon continued to flex its defensive muscles and occasionally relied on Maier to keep the high-flying Raiders at bay throughout the third period to preserve the win.
Prince Albert came closest to evening up the game with just under six minutes left as Maier lost sight of a wobbling puck in his goal crease. Three Raiders players swiped at the puck, but it was Saskatoon clearing it down the ice.
The Blades (19-10-3-0) were able to win two of three weekend games. After an a day off on Monday, The Blades are back at Sasktel Centre Tuesday to welcome the Edmonton Oil Kings.