Murray Wood: Drought or deluge, it's Saskatchewan weather
Murray Wood notes that while we have seen years with "perfect" weather in the province, they aren't that commo...
It seems nothing can go wrong for the Saskatoon Blades right now.
The Blades took advantage of a gaffe by Red Deer Rebels goaltender Ethan Anders to clinch a 1-0 win and inch closer to securing home ice advantage in the first round of the Western Hockey League (WHL) playoffs Sunday at Sasktel Centre.
After both teams played to a scoreless first period, it was Cyle McNabb chasing down a moving puck into the Red Deer end of the ice as it settled into Anders’ crease. Anders missed a swipe at the puck intending to send it into the corner as McNabb poked it into the net.
“It was a fortunate bounce,” McNabb said after scoring the easiest goal of his career. “It went my way, but I’ll take it. They all count.”
Head coach Mitch Love felt the same about the unflattering game-winning goal.
“We’ll take it, especially this time of year,” Love said. “Our guys did a hell of a job tonight. That’s a really good hockey team over there that make you work and compete.”
Most of that competing took place in the first period as both teams skated end-to-end with a handful of goal scoring opportunities for each teams, including a save of the year candidate when Anders stopped two Blades in a span of a second with his glove.
Both teams combined for 26 shots in the first period and just 24 for the rest of the game. Red Deer put five shots on net in the second period and didn’t get a single puck to Nolan Maier in the third period.
“I think I got pretty lucky,” Maier said after earning back-to-back shutouts over the weekend.
“All the action came at the start of the first period, so it was pretty easy to settle in.”
Maier admitted that Sunday might be the first game in his life where he didn’t take a shot in a period.
Saskatoon now has 41 wins on the season and is now 12 points ahead of Moose Jaw for home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Both teams will face each other in Moose Jaw on Tuesday for bragging rights ahead of their playoff matchup as no other team can intervene in both teams’ places in the standings.
For now, Love is just happy his team was able to escape with a win after scoring a lucky goal and relying on its defence throughout the afternoon.
“The hockey gods were with us on that one…. but when you work and you earn your opportunities, things like that happen for you and I’m glad it happened for us and not them today.”
