The Saskatoon Blades are coming home from Prince Albert with more questions than answers after two straight losses to the Raiders.
At least for the first part of the series, the scoreboard didn’t show much mercy. Between the first two games, Saskatoon scored only one goal, and the gap wasn’t subtle. In the first game, the Raiders fired 31 shots to the Blades’ 16, and Saskatoon fell 6-1. It’s the kind of stat that sticks in your head when you hear the arena buzz still sitting in your ears—like, you can almost feel how constant the pressure was.
Now the team is back in Saskatoon, licking their wounds and getting ready for Game 3 of their second-round playoff series. The shot clock disparity is front and center for head coach Dan DaSilva, who said the Blades need to even things out, plain and simple. Misryoum newsroom reported that DaSilva framed it as a level-of-play issue as much as a numbers issue.
“We know that we haven’t been at our best the first two games; I think they’ve played really well. I don’t think that we’ve played to the level we’re capable of quite yet,” DaSilva said.
Captain Tyler Parr offered a slightly different angle, but still pointed to the same general problem. The Blades say they learned something in game one. Parr said he felt far more comfortable going into the second, and while Saskatoon was still shut out, the shot total was dialled back and the score tightened to 3-0. It wasn’t a full turnaround, but it was closer—closer in the way it matters when you’re trying to keep your head above water.
“I think we just defended harder, we made better plays, we played faster, we got pucks in. We just didn’t necessarily spend enough time in their end. So that’s kind of the next part of it,” Parr said.
But the Raiders’ offensive power has pushed Saskatoon into a defensive style, at least for now. DaSilva argues the Blades can’t just react when opportunities show up—they have to disrupt the Raiders before the game becomes a defensive crawl. “They shoot a ton of pucks, right? It’s clear they have a shot mentality within their group, and they do a good job at it. We’ve got to do a better job preventing easy entries and getting in their end. The best defence is offence,” DaSilva said.
So, home ice is part of the hope. The Blades return to SaskTel Centre with a chance to reset the tempo and make sure the next matchup doesn’t look anything like the opening game. Game 3 will take place on Tuesday at SaskTel Centre—and if Saskatoon can tilt the shot balance while spending more time in the right end, they might finally give themselves a different story than the first two games. Or maybe not. Either way, they don’t have much time to overthink it.
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