Blades down Tigers in Saskatoon
=Saskatoon, SK – In a duel of the Top 2 teams in the Eastern Conference. The Saskatoon Blades would take the 2nd meeting of the season over the Medicine Hat Tigers 5-2 Friday night at SaskTel Centre.
The Tigers got on the scoresheet first and it didn’t take long for Reid Andresen (Saskatoon, SK) scoring his 6th of the season in front of family and friends in attendance just 35 seconds into the game to take the 1-0 lead. Oasiz Wiesblatt (Calgary, AB) & Gavin McKenna (Whitehorse, YT) would draw assists on the goal. Saskatoon would respond shortly after at 4:11 Egor Sidorov would one-time his 38th of the season to tie the period at 1-1. The Blades would then take their first lead of the 1st on a 5 on 3 power play as Trevor Wong would put the Blades in front 2-1 at 10:45. Medicine Hat would battle back as on a power play of their own. Andrew Basha (Calgary, AB) would tap in his 20th of the season from McKenna & Tomas Mrsic (Surrey, BC) and the game would stay tied after 20 minutes of play.
The Blades would outshoot the Tigers in the middle frame 12-2 but Zach Zahara (Rockyview, AB) would come up big in a couple sequences including a power play blast from Egor Sidorov. Despite some push back and a broken play late in the dying seconds of the second period. Fraser Minten would battle his way for his 13th of the season beating Zahara to give Saskatoon a 3-2 lead.
The Blades would get more help from Minten early on in the third period as he’d bank in his 14th and second of the night at 2:51. The Tigers would pull out all the stop to try and get closer to the 1st Place Blades but it wouldn’t come to fruition as Sidorov would hit the empty net for his second of the night. Putting things away and dropping the Tigers 5-2.
With the loss, Medicine Hat moves to 29-15-3-1 on the season but with the Red Deer Rebels loss to Brandon Friday, the Tigers remain two points ahead of the Rebels for first in the Central Division.
Next up for the Tigers, a trip to the Art Hauser Centre to face the Prince Albert Raiders Saturday night.
You can catch the game live on the home of the Tigers away from Co-op Place Wild 94.5 with Gino De Paoli, starting with the pre-game show at 5:45 MT and puck drop is set for 6 PM.
