WHL Eastern final: Blades get shut out by Winnipeg Ice in Game 1

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Ice 3, Blades 0

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New series.

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Familiar start.

For the third consecutive playoff round, the Saskatoon Blades find themselves trailing right off the hop after dropping Game 1 to the Winnipeg Ice on Friday in Winnipeg.

The Ice blanked the Blades 3-zip to take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven Western Hockey League Eastern Conference final series.

Game 2 goes Saturday in Winnipeg.

“What I’ll say is this: This team, Winnipeg, compared to Red Deer, is extremely dissimilar,” Blades head coach Brennan Sonne told CJWW Radio play-by-play broadcaster Les Lazaruk after the game.

“Red Deer is dissimilar from Regina. Things we were doing against Red Deer, there are six, seven or eight areas that we need to do differently against Winnipeg. Just like anyone knows — say you’re used to using a Mac (computer) a lot and, all of a sudden, at work you have to use a PC. Well, it takes you a minute to catch up.

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“Honestly, I thought there were a lot of things tonight that fell under that category where we have to make a lot of adjustments and get used to it very quickly. At the same time, you need to apply and execute with passion. You have to bring the passion …

“We need to be way more passionate.”

Ben Zloty, Zack Ostapchuk and Carson Lambos each scored once for the Ice, which led 2-0 and 3-0 by periods. Ostapchuk scored on a penalty shot after he was hauled down on a breakaway by Blades forward Trevor Wong.

The Ice scored a fourth goal to go up 4-0 in the third period but the Blades won a challenge and the play was off-side and the goal disallowed.

Winnipeg out-shot Saskatoon 28-16.

Ethan Chadwick made saves for the Blades. Daniel Hauser stopped 16 shots in the win.

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The Blades went 0-for-4 on the power play. The Ice were 0-for-1.

BLADE BITS: Three stars were 1) Ostapchuk, 2) Sloty and 3) Haiser … Announced attendance was 1,613 at the Wayne Fleming Arena, which is home to the University of Manitoba Bisons … The Blades were without defencemen Blake Gustafson and Ben Saunderson, both out due to injury. Morgan Tastad, who played for the Saskatoon Contacts this season, was in the Blades line-up.

dzary@postmedia.com

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