Saskatoon StarPhoenix Staff
A familiar foe — and the franchise’s most bitter rival — awaits the Saskatoon Blades.
The blue-and-gold are on to the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs, thanks to some history-making post-season heroics.
Rowan Calvert, the team’s 20-year-old alternate captain, scored the overtime winner at 7:23 into the extra frame on Monday in Edmonton as the Blades beat the heavily-favoured Oil Kings 3-2 in Game 7 of their first-round series.
Up next are the Prince Albert Raiders, their Highway 11 rivals and the top-ranked Eastern Division squad, starting on Friday and Saturday in P.A. Games 3 and 4 are set for SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon on April 14 and 15, respectively.
“We knew that if we stuck to our game plan, stuck to the way we needed to play, that we’d have success,” Blades coach Dan DaSilva said after the thrilling win over Edmonton, which was the first Game 7 road victory in franchise history.
Just like in the first round, the Blades will be an underdog against P.A. They’ll need to win at least one game in Prince Albert’s Art Hauser Centre if they hope to steal the series.
Raiders head coach Ryan McDonald gives credit to the community and crowd for rallying behind the team, and making it a difficult venue for road teams to come into.
The Raiders advanced to the second round in five games over the Red Deer Rebels, including an overtime victory at home in Game 5.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of it for a lot of years … When you’re walking around town and people talk to you and wish you good luck for the next game, it’s just one big family,” McDonald said.
The last time the Blades and Raiders met in the post-season was 2024, when Saskatoon knocked out P.A. in the first round. In 2019, the Raiders eliminated the Blades in the second round.
To set up the latest post-season showdown versus P.A., the sixth-seeded Blades won three games on the road versus the third-seeded Oil Kings, including the winner-take-all on Monday in front of 4,857 fans at Rogers Centre.
Edmonton had 95 points and was a legitimate Memorial Cup contender. Saskatoon finished 20 points behind the Oil Kings, but managed to pull off the seven-game upset.
An overtime finale was appropriate in a series that featured three OT games, including a Game 6 victory in Saskatoon by the Oil Kings that sent the teams back to Edmonton.
In Game 7 on Monday, David Lewandowski opened the scoring for the Blades with a power-play goal 6:46 into the second period. Exactly two minutes later, Aaron Obobaifo tied the game for Edmonton, setting the stage for a critical third period.
Things looked bleak for the Blades, when Edmonton captain Gavin Hodnett put the Oil Kings ahead at 14:19 of the frame. Quickly, however, Saskatoon responded with the game-tying goal from Cooper Williams 33 seconds later.
“Yeah, it’s easy to get off track when things start going awry, but our guys did a good job getting things back on the rails,” DaSilva said.
“We never wavered.”
The Oil Kings had a power play in overtime, and forward Lukas Sawchyn was staring at an empty net in a wild scramble, only to have Blades defenceman Brayden Klimke block the shot with his leg. Two minutes later, Edmonton’s Kanjyu Gosdic was called for goaltender interference on Blades keeper Evan Gardner and the Blades scored on their ensuing power play.
As the Oil Kings and their fans were left in a stunned silence, the Blades doggy-piled on top of Calvert near centre ice amidst a jubilant celebration.
Gardner stopped 30 of 32 shots in the win for Saskatoon. Parker Snell made 29 saves for Edmonton.
“I’ve heard it lots that the home team trying to close things out has all the pressure, like they did Sunday. It’s about how you push through it… we didn’t play connected enough to close it out,” Edmonton head coach Jason Smith said.
“We could have played better than we did as a group. We didn’t play long enough, hard enough or execute well enough and they did.”
— With files from Jim Matheson, Edmonton Journal, and Michael Oleksyn, Prince Albert Daily Herald
