Blades outlast Wheaties for key win

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This article was published 20/03/2025 (469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

David Lewandowski scored twice as the visiting Saskatoon Blades posted a massive 3-1 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings in Western Hockey League action at Westoba Place on Wednesday.

Saskatoon (37-22-3-4) received its other goal from Rowan Calvert, with Luke Shipley replying for Brandon (36-23-4-3) in front of a crowd of 2,902.

“I think we have to take some things from Saskatoon,” Shipley said. “They play a playoff game. We were close but we weren’t up to their standard. They were finishing checks, they were doing all the right things that you need to do in playoffs and at the end of the day, they got the bounces and they wanted it more.”

The win pushed second-place Saskatoon two points into the lead ahead of sixth-place Brandon with two games left for both clubs, and the Blades are one point ahead of the fifth-place Prince Albert Raiders (37-23-5-1), who beat the Moose Jaw Warriors 3-1 on Tuesday.

In a pair of fierce rivalries, the Wheat Kings have a pair of games left against the 10th-place Regina Pats, while the Blades face the Raiders.

With a pair of wins on the weekend, it won’t matter what happens elsewhere. Saskatoon will win the East Division crown and take the second seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

“It kind of had a playoff feel to it,” Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said. “I thought we played well enough to win. We had a lot of chances but their goalie (Evan Gardner) played well. I think we hit him in the crest quite a few times and we hit four or five goal posts and that was the difference in the game.”

Brandon went to the power play 53 seconds into the game when overage forward Tanner Scott ran into Brandon goalie Carson Bjarnason at the end of a two-on-one, and the Wheat Kings narrowly missed taking an early lead with the extra man when Roger McQueen’s pass to Nolan Flamand failed to connect at the side of the net.

Bjarnason made his best save of the first period with his pad when he denied Scott on a breakaway as a pair of Brandon defenders desperately tried to interrupt his shot from behind.

Gardner, who came into the game with a 126-minute, 19-second shutout streak, made 12 saves in the goal-less opening period, several of them on shots on his logo that he easily handled.

Brandon overager Marcus Nguyen nearly put the streak to an end two minutes into the second period but his backhander rang off the crossbar.

The Blades opened the scoring eight minutes 15 seconds into the middle frame when the German rookie Lewandowski curled off the boards into the slot and fired a shot over Bjarnason’s glove.

The Wheat Kings continued to find the iron, with defenceman Adam Belusko hitting a post off the rush 12 minutes in. Gardner’s best stop came on Nolan Flamand on a broken play late in the period when the overage forward was all alone in front.

Brandon’s near misses continued into the third period 20 seconds in when Jordan Gavin hit the post on an incredible passing play in which the Wheat Kings did everything but score.

The Blades took a two-goal lead 7:19 into the third period on a low, sharp-angle shot by Calvert that clearly surprised Bjarnason and snuck into the net.

The Wheat Kings finally solved Gardner off some hard work by Jaxon Jacobson. The 16-year-old-rookie stripped Zach Olson of the puck near his net and Jordan Gavin got it over to Shipley in the slot, and the defenceman wired home his 18th goal of the season with 8:13 remaining.

“Gav got it in the high slot — maybe Jax stripped someone — and I kind of looked at the net and Gav heard me calling and made a heads-up play,” Shipley said. “I got to the middle and there was kind of a screen and I shot it low glove.”

Gardner made an amazing pad save off the rush on Quinn Mantei on a backdoor play with less than three minutes remaining.

Brandon pulled Bjarnason for an extra attacker with 96 seconds remaining and a faceoff in the Blades zone. Murray called a timeout and Shipley hit the post 13 seconds later, as Lewandowski found the empty net with exactly a minute remaining.

The Wheat Kings had one last gasp when Olson took a delay-of-game penalty with 49.8 seconds left but Brandon took one of its own 28 seconds later to ice the game.

“It was pretty tight checking,” Murray said. “There wasn’t a lot of open ice out there. I thought we generated some opportunities, we just couldn’t hit the back of the net unfortunately.”

Bjarnason made 23 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Gardner stopping 32 shots for the Blades.

Brandon went 0-for-3 on the power play, with Saskatoon unsuccessful in two chances.

Saskatoon head coach Dan DaSilva was proud of his group.

“I saw a group that believed in each other and themselves and had the confidence to go out there in a really tough situation in a huge game and stick to what we’ve been doing in terms of what it takes to win hockey games,” DaSilva said. “We had contributions again from everyone up and down the lineup, whether it was big or small, 10 minutes or 25 minutes. We had everybody pulling the rope.”

ICINGS: Brandon skated without injured F Easton Odut and D Merrek Arpin, plus healthy scratches D Cam Allard, F Ben Binder Nord and F Isaac Davies … The first WHL playoff matchup was set when the Seattle Thunderbirds clinched the final playoff spot in the Western Conference after a loss by the Kamloops Blazers. They’ll face the league-leading Everett Silvertips … Gardner signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday. Columbus made him the fourth goalie selected when they grabbed him with the 60th overall pick in the second round of the 2024 National Hockey League draft … Brandon won the season series with both Saskatoon and Prince Albert … Seven different Wheat Kings led the way with three shots on net … The game took two hours, 22 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Saskatoon won 29-26 … The Wheat Kings will hand out the team awards at Westoba Place on Friday in their game against the Pats, which starts at 7 p.m. Saturday’s game at the Brandt Centre also begins at 7 o’clock (CDT).

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