A win on Wednesday night and the Saskatoon Blades were guaranteed a spot in the championship game of the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup.
Instead, after a 4-2 loss to the Portland Winterhawks, the Blades now face off against London Thursday where they need a victory to advance to the semi-finals. The Knights beat Saskatoon on day one of the tournament 3-2.
Worse for the Blades is there's a chance defenceman Dalton Thrower will be suspended. NHL Hockey Operations is looking into the hit by Thrower from the first period on Taylor Leier and a decision will be made by noon Thursday. Thrower caught Leier with what might have been a hit to the head.
"I looked at it and the video coverage that I have it looked like the Leier boy was cutting to the middle and Dalton hit him in the chest area and down he went," said Lorne Molleken, Blades head coach.
Travis Green, Portland's head coach, disagrees.
"It would be pretty hard to be in the position he was in to be hitting in the shoulder. It's pretty obvious where the shot comes, it hits him in the head, and there is a jump to it as well. The video's pretty obvious," he said.
Whether there is a suspension or not, the damage is done for the Winterhawks, and Green isn't happy about it.
"Why would I be happy? My player's knocked out cold with a hit, or close to, or out of the game, on a hit it's pretty obvious why I'm upset," he said.
Thrower said he hopes Leier is OK, but like his coach, felt like it was a clean shoulder-to-shoulder hit.
Saskatoon won't have time to worry about a possible suspension. All the focus needs to be shifted to a rematch against London with their season riding on one game.
"Going through adversity's nothing new for this team and we're kind of looking forward to proving ourselves again," said Josh Nicholls, Saskatoon winger.
It was a physical affair from beginning to end, but it might have backfired on the Blades who were in penalty trouble much of the game.
"That's our identity, we're a hard-nosed team. We have some skill up front but the majority of our team is meat and potatoes," said Duncan Siemens, Blades defenceman. "Our penalties definitely did wear down on us and we're going to be looking to improve in that area each and every game."
For most of the game it looked like Saskatoon might pull off another upset. Derrick Pouliot put Portland up 1-0 early, but the Blades quickly tied things up when Shane McColgan's pass was deflected in by a Winterhawks defender. From there, the game went back and forth with some good defensive play from the host team along with solid goaltending, which has become a theme from Andrey Makarov.
The floodgates opened in the third when Chase De Leo, Brendan Leipsic and Ty Rattie all scored in a six-minute span.
Nicholls was able to answer with his fourth goal in three games, but it was too little too late.
Mac Carruth answered any questions surrounding Portland's goaltending as he stopped 29 of 31 shots, in many ways keeping his team in it until the offence heated up.
The Winterhawks have Thursday off as they get ready for Friday's semi-final matchup against the winner of the Knights versus Blades game. Halifax has already advanced to Sunday's final.
