SASKATOON, Sask. – The London Knights rallied around their goaltender, and Anthony Stolarz didn’t want to let them down.
The Knights won the opening game of the MasterCard Memorial Cup 3-2 over the host Saskatoon Blades on Friday. Stolarz, who didn’t play in the final three games of the Ontario Hockey League finals against Barrie, got the nod in favour of Jake Patterson, who was recently sick with the flu.
His teammates did their best to prevent shots from reaching him in the dying minutes with the Blades pressing for the equalizer.
“You look at Max Domi with a minute and 15 seconds left and diving and blocking that shot and it gets the guys rallying,” Stolarz said. “I don’t think they had a shot the last two minutes in the (third) period. Just for the guys being out there and sacrificing their body, it’s tremendous.
“You want to show support and just try to stop the puck for them because if they’re laying out for you, you want to lay out for them as well.”
Stolarz turned aside 27 of the 29 shots he faced for the win. The Knights responded after allowing the first goal of the game and tied it on a goal by Brett Welychka. Seth Griffith later put the Knights in front 2-1.
The Blades gained momentum after killing off several penalties in the second period. Josh Nicholls was sprung on a breakaway and held off Knights captain Scott Harrington long enough to get a backhand away on Stolarz, and scored his second of the game on his rebound.
“I’m always looking for breakaways, it’s something I’ve been known for in this league,” he said.
“He went to the tough areas, he drove the net and I think both his goals were right in the crease and typically you don’t’ see him score those goals,” Blades defenceman Duncan Siemens said of Nicholls. “But he did what it took and really bared down on his opportunities so that’s huge.”
Why the Knights won: The Knights were able to exorcise some demons by holding on to a third period lead. After allowing some teams back in games in the last two rounds of the playoffs, the Knights went up early in the final frame on a power-play goal from Nikita Zadorov and never looked back.
The players were fearless in blocking shots, not unlike in last year’s tournament, and did an excellent job keeping shots to the outside when the Blades were looking to tie.
“Against Barrie (in the OHL final), they came back on us a few times and everybody thinks you can’t hold a lead,” Knights head coach Dale Hunter said. “They did a good job blocking shots late in the game.”
Why the Blades lost: Prior to the tournament, several Blades players indicated the third period was historically their best, but that wasn’t the case Friday.
“We played a real good game but we got away from what made us successful in the first and second period in the third,” forward Lukas Sutter said. “We have to be better for 60 minutes.”
The Blades’ game plan was to play the body and try to wear down a team that last played on Monday in Game 7 of their league championship series. They threw their body around with reckless abandon in the first period, but their physical play tapered off.
“We did a good job of wearing them down early,” Sutter said. “We didn’t do that in the third period.”
Player of the Game: Blades goaltender Makarov made some fantastic saves early in the game while his teammates found their game legs following their long layoff. He stopped 30-of-33 shots in the loss.
“Makarov was outstanding,” Blades head coach Lorne Molleken said. “If it wasn’t for him in that first period, the game would have been a lot different as it went on. He’s a world class goaltender and he gave us that opportunity tonight.”
“He’s our backbone to our team and he was the reason why he kept us in the game,” Nicholls said. “It should have been 5-1 in the first but he made four huge saves for us.”
Unsung Hero: Welychka doesn’t get many headlines on a team with so much star power, but his goal midway through the first period got the game tied up at one. He battled in front of the crease and fired a quick backhand over Makarov’s glove.
Earlier in the game, he made a nice pass to set up Chris Tierney, who was stopped by a sliding Makarov. Welychka made his presence felt.
Game Changer: The Knights were able to convert on their fifth power-play of the game on a pretty goal by Zadorov. The original shot from Harrington hit a man in front and bounced perfectly for Zadorov, who was streaking in looking for the rebound. He made a nice play to beat Russian countryman Makarov.
“It was a good job by Nik realizing he had space to move down towards the net and I know for a fact the puck was bouncing when he picked it up, but he did a great job,” Harrington said.
Quote of the day: Nicholls described the mood on the bench of a team that hadn’t played since March 27.
“All of us were itching to get on the ice,” he said. “When we weren’t getting called (to go on the ice), we were kind of pissed off because we wanted to get on the ice. We were ready to go.”
