SASKATOON – It’s been tough sledding for the Saskatoon Blades of late, highlighted by three losses in three nights over a weekend road trip through Alberta. The Blades are now ten games below .500 and looking for answers.
“It’s tough sometimes when you don’t have a lot of older guys to lead by example and really show how things are done,” admits head coach Bob Woods, “but the efforts have been there and as a coaching staff that’s all we want right now.”
With such a tough stretch it wouldn’t be a surprise if frustration was starting to set in the dressing room. Captain Brett Stovin says that sometimes frustration can be a good thing, perhaps light a fire. But some his teammates may not be responding the right way to the recent hardship.
“There are guys that are taking it the right way and there are guys that are kind of stepping back,” says Stovin.
“That’s my job and some of the older guys job to talk to some of them about it and say look, you got to work harder in practice, you got to stay out longer. For us older guys we got to keep doing to same thing.”
There is some good news for the Blades as they will welcome back some injured players soon, including goalie Nik Amundrud and defenceman Ryan Coghlan, who has been out since Oct. 22 with an injured shoulder.
“I could kind of tell something was wrong when I was skating off the ice,” Coghlan recalls of the injury. “I was a little in shock when I got on the bench and I kind of collapsed and I think it kind of popped back into place, not 100 per cent sure, when I fell down. It’s a scary thing.”
Brett Stovin feels having healthy bodies in the lineup should only help the Blades as they try to get back on track.
“We got a lot of guys playing some big minutes. So it’s always nice to get key guys back in the lineup.”
The Blades host the Swift Current Broncos Saturday night in what kicks off a busy stretch that takes them deep in December.
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