Blades complete sweep of Warriors with 4-3 OT victory

Max Gerlach was tying one of his skates when the overtime winner slipped past Moose Jaw Warriors goaltender Adam Evanoff, so from there it was a race to fix his equipment, get on the ice and celebrate.

“When you get to jump over the boards and kind of scream with your teammates and get a big smile on your face, it definitely feels good,” Gerlach grinned Wednesday.

And there were lots of things for his Saskatoon Blades to scream about after their 4-3 overtime victory over the host Warriors. For starters, it was the Blades’ first playoff series win in eight years. It has been six WHL seasons since they even made the playoffs.

Saskatoon swept the Warriors in four tight games to move on to the next round. Two of the games ended in overtime and three of them came down to just one goal between the teams.

“It could have went either way,” admitted Blades head coach Mitch Love. “It was great. We’re proud of our guys for their effort. I thought we played a good series, especially our last two games here on the road. I thought we elevated our play and we were rewarded for it.”

The Blades peppered Evanoff with shots throughout the deciding game — 48 shots to Moose Jaw’s 26 — so Gerlach felt pretty confident one would go in for his team. But no one expected the way the game finished.

Four minutes and 36 seconds into overtime, Kristian Roykas-Marthinsen shot the puck at the Moose Jaw net from a weird angle. The puck hit a skate of a Warriors player and went in. Game over.

It took a moment for the goal to even register for the Warriors players in the general vicinity, as they stood in a daze for a few seconds before realizing the game was finished and they had lost.

The Warriors went into overtime feeling like the game was on their side. Tristan Langan had tapped in a late shorthanded goal to force the overtime period and captain Josh Brook said that, riding that momentum, they were ready to close things out.

“Getting that late shorthanded goal because of a bad penalty I took and Tristan Langan, the heart and soul he is of this team, worked his bag off to score that goal and everyone was fired up,” an emotional Brook said. “We definitely thought we should have won that going into overtime, but it’s hockey and anything can happen and it was a tough loss.”

Game 4 was back and forth all night with the Blades opening the scoring on a goal from Gerlach at 7:37 of the first period.

But for every goal by one team, the other found an answer. Luke Ormsby evened things up for the Warriors late in the period, giving them a much-needed boost after assistant captain and star player Justin Almeida left the game with an apparent arm injury.

In the second, the Warriors scored first with defenceman Matthew Benson potting his first-ever WHL goal to gave his team its first lead. But Tristan Robbins responded, somehow collecting the puck off a faceoff and popping it past Evanoff to even things up again.

In the third, Kirby Dach showed off his incredible speed with a highlight-reel goal, poking the puck past a Warriors defenceman and beating Evanoff one on one. With roughly four and a half minutes left and Brook serving a four-minute penalty, it was all but over.

That was until Langan sent the contest to overtime with his shorthanded goal.

In overtime, it was winner takes all with no opportunity to answer. That’s where the Blades were able to finish Moose Jaw off.

“They put a lot of effort and sweat and blood into the mix for the last week … so we’re proud of our guys,” Love said. “We’ll enjoy it here for 24 hours or so, get our rest and then come back to work and prepare ourselves for Round 2.”

Round 2 will be another Saskatchewan matchup, as the Blades are to take on the red-hot Prince Albert Raiders. Prince Albert swept its series against the Red Deer Rebels on Wednesday night.

But with this close series under the Blades’ belts, Love is feeling good about heading into their next series.

“We understand we’re going into a hornet’s nest in Prince Albert and play the best team in the league, and hopefully we’re more battle-tested and ready for that,” Love said.