It’s a series 55 years in the making — the Saskatoon Blades are taking on the Edmonton Oil Kings, a series the WHL hasn’t seen since 1971.
The Oil Kings, third in the conference, stand above the Blades, but the challenge doesn’t deter Blades defenceman Brayden Klimpke.
“People might see us as the underdog, but I don’t think we mind that. Like I said, we have a lot of confidence in that room, and we believe in this group, so I don’t think it really fazes us,” said Klimpke.
With a strong offence, the Oil Kings pose a serious threat to the Blades, scoring an average of nearly one more goal per game than the Blades through the regular season. Having gone up and down through that season, head coach Dan DaSilva stresses the team needs to work on their consistency.
“We need to be an extremely hard-working team, we do. We need to have everybody pulling the rope, we have to have contributions from everyone,” said DaSilva.
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“When we have good games and win hockey games and beat good teams, it’s when we have everybody going.”
The strong Oil Kings offensive line puts pressure on star goaltender Evan Gardener, who says it’ll be a serious test of their game.
“Yeah, they’re going to be a really good team. We saw it through the regular season: they’re really hard, defensively, and they got some good offensive talent,” said Gardener of the upcoming round.
“Yeah, I mean it’s going to be a real fun series, and a real test for us.”
The Blades this year are one of the youngest teams in the league, with eight rookies on the roster. For team veterans, the pressure is on to build up the young player base and prepare them for the playoff run — a task team captain Tyler Parr takes to heart.
“That’s something I take huge pride in, being good to the young guys, making sure they’re comfortable, making sure they know how we do things here. It’s not an easy league to play in, but it’s a lot of fun,” said Parr.
The Blades soon hit the road, heading to Edmonton for the first two games of the series on March 27 and 28, before the series returns to Saskatoon on March 31.
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