Kings Blank Blades in Game 1
Dresden Kings celebrate their win – Photo by Dresden Kings
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Kings blank Blades 3-0 in quarter-final series opener
Well that certainly wasn’t the outcome the Blenheim Blades and their fans were hoping for to kick off their best-of-seven Provincial Junior Hockey League Stobbs Division playoff series.
The Kings, scoring a goal in each period, blanked the Blades 3-0 Thursday night before 655 fans at the Blenheim arena.
The Blades will now look to even the series at a victory each, and regain home ice advantage, Monday night when they travel to Dresden for a 7:30 game before returning home Thursday for Game 3 at 7 p.m.
Eric Carter, former Blade Brendan Ritchie, and Macks Holmes had the Dresden goals while Joel Sowinski stopped all 27 shots sent his way by the Blades.
Eric Stewardson took the loss in the Blenheim net stopping 18 of 21 Dresden shots.
Carter opened the scoring with an unassisted goal at 10:22 of the first period, with Ritchie getting his goal at 11:27 of the middle 20 minutes, and Holmes scoring on a powerplay at 5:53 of the third period.
BLADES BITS: The Blades were missing forward Zach Horvath, university exam; defenceman Keegan MacVoy, season-ending surgery; defenceman Derek Hueni, who sat out the second of a three-game suspension, and defenceman Patrick Wright, who missed the game with a lower body injury…The game was quick taking just an hour and 47 minutes to complete…The Blades took 18 of 28 penalty minutes called by referees Sean Geene and Kyle Vermast…The penalty totals included a two-minute minor for boarding and a 10-minute misconduct to Blades assistant captain Matt Clark with 5:57 to play.