The Saskatoon Blades came close to getting back to .500 on their current U-S Division road trip Wednesday night, but couldn’t close the deal in a 2-1 overtime setback to the Spokane Chiefs.

Owen Martin tallied with 48 seconds into extra time for Spokane, as they improved their season record to 8-6-0 and ended a three-game head-to-head losing streak to the Bridge City Bunch that dated back to November, 2019. The Blades are now 10-5-1 for the season and 1-2-1 for the U-S swing with games remaining Friday and Saturday against the Seattle Thunderbirds and Wenatchee Wild, respectively. Wednesday’s game was a close-checking, goaltenders duo type of contest with German import Linus Vieillard besting Evan Gardner in the end. Vieillard stopped 29 of 30 Blue and Gold shots while Gardner blocked 22 of 24 Spokane drives. Saskatoon appeared to be in good position when they broke through on Dominik Petr’s power play goal just 28 seconds into the third period, then killed off a Spokane man advantage shortly thereafter. But, Elias Pul forced overtime when he got free to the front of the Bridge City Bunch net and beat Gardner – one of the few mistakes the Blue and Gold made. On the winning goal, the Blades lost the puck in the Spokane end, leading to a 2-on-1 break with Martin finishing Mathis Preston’s cross-crease pass. Saskatoon plays Friday in Kent, Washington against Seattle. Following are the audio highlights from CJWW’s broadcast, Les Lazaruk’s Post-Game Show interview with head coach Dan Da Silva plus the official game summary courtesy the W-H-L website…..

SASKATOON Goals SASKATOON PLAYERS (plus) SPOKANE PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 3rd :28 PP  82-47-20

SPOKANE Goals SPOKANE PLAYERS (plus) SASKATOON PLAYERS (minus) Per. Time  G-As1-As2 3rd 5:58  77-18-47 11 17 18 47 77 9 11 16 47 56 OT :43  21-96 21 47 96 3 11 16