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The Saskatoon Blazers are U18 AAA hockey champions for a second consecutive season.
The Blazers completed a sweep of the Regina Pat Canadians on Tuesday night at SaskTel Centre, defeating them 5-3 to win the best-of-five provincial championship.
“Everyone loves to win,” said Blazers head coach Troy Walkington after the game. “To be able to come here and and win back to back is an awesome feeling.”
Dayne Beuker opened the scoring for the Blazers with just under six minutes remaining in the opening period.
The goal from Beuker seemed to open the floodgates in the first, as Jonah Sivertson and the Pat Canadians responded with a goal of their own just 23 seconds later.
The Blazers punched back after the tying goal. Lee Shurgot scored just 13 seconds later to give the Blazers a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
Shurgot added another goal on the power play in the second period to extend the Blazers’ lead to 3-1.
Michael Donovan was able to bring the Pat Canadians within one early in the third, but that’s as close as they came. The Blazers’ Jake Missura scored with under five minutes remaining to make it 4-2.
Captain Raiden Zacharias tallied an empty-net goal to make it 5-2 and clinch the championship for the Blazers.
Sivertson added a late goal in the third for the Pat Canadians to cut the result to 5-3.
Shurgot and Zacharias both recorded three-point games in the victory.
Despite two of his veteran players helping lead the way offensively, Walkington said the play of goaltender Grayson Malinoski was a big reason why the Blazers were able to come home with the provincial title.
“There is no team that wins a championship that doesn’t have great goaltending,” Walkington said. “I think he’s been outstanding for us all year. Every team that wins gets great goaltending, and I think we certainly aren’t an exception.”
Malinoski was sensational in the game and the entire playoffs. He stopped 34 of 37 shots he faced in the win, and throughout the playoffs had a 9-0-1 record, along with two shutouts.
Shurgot was happy with how his team was able to cap off what was a toughly contested series.
“It’s awesome. It was a great team effort there. Obviously we had a little adversity (against Regina), but the job isn’t finished. We want to do better and finish it off at nationals,” he said.
Now that the Blazers have their provincial title out of the way, Walkington said they want to improve after last year’s third-place finish at nationals.
“At the end of last year when we ended up going to nationals and getting bronze, our goal was to go back and get a national championship,” Walkington said.
“I’ve said this before: If that’s not your goal at the beginning of the year, then you’re doing something wrong. That’s still our goal. We wanted the No. 1 seed, which we got. We wanted nine playoff wins and certainly got that. We know that there’s another four wins in Winnipeg and, ultimately, we are certainly eying that.”
“I think that’s the ultimate goal,” said Shurgot, who is one of seven returning players from last year’s team. “We’ve been working hard for it. We’ve got a great group of guys here.”