With only 15 regular-season Western Hockey League games remaining, the Victoria Royals can be excused for closely perusing the standings in the newspaper scoreboard page.
The Kelowna Rockets put added pressure on the Royals this week. Forward Andrew Cristall, the 16th-ranked North American skater for the 2023 NHL draft, returned from a six-week injury to score four goals for the Rockets in a 5-2 victory over Everett on Wednesday to snap a four-game Kelowna losing streak and push the Rockets three points ahead of Victoria with two games in hand in the race for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference.
“We are in playoff mode right now,” said Royals GM and head coach Dan Price.
“We realize it’s a two-team competition and know the reality of the math.”
Call it the pre-first round with the Royals and Rockets, who have exhausted their head-to-head regular-season match-ups, and are instead waging a race by proxy.
“We don’t play Kelowna anymore but we each are playing common opponents down the stretch,” said Price.
Among those are the Saskatoon Blades, who beat the Rockets 4-2 in Kelowna last weekend, and are now on the Island to take on the Royals Friday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
This is a very good Saskatoon squad and its 35-13-4 record reflects that. Blades defenceman Tanner Molendyk from McBride is the 36th-ranked North American-based skater for the 2023 NHL draft and Belarusian forward Egor Sidorov the 86th ranked and with 31 goals on the season. On the veteran side of the ledger, the Blades have traded well and boast three fourth-round NHL draft pick forwards with former Kamloops Blazer Josh Pillar taken by the Minnesota Wild, former Brandon Wheat King Jake Chiasson by the Edmonton Oilers and former Seattle Thunderbird Conner Roulette by the Dallas Stars. Saskatoon is more solid than spectacular. It’s not an overall starry lineup, compared to some of the top-end WHL teams this season, but the Blades have balance, cohesion and tenacity and that has carried them a long way.
“They have depth and speed and aggression,” said Price.
The Royals, meanwhile, are buoyed by the recent return of defenceman Austin Zemlak and forwards Brayden Schuurman and Matthew Hodson from the injury list. But two crucial players — leading-scorer Jake Poole and San Jose Sharks-signed captain Gannon Laroque — remain out.
The Royals (15-32-5) follow up with three consecutive and daunting games against the Western Conference-leading and Canadian Hockey League No. 3-ranked Seattle Thunderbirds, who boast five first-round NHL draft picks. The Royals and Thunderbirds meet Saturday night in Kent, Washington, and Monday and Tuesday at the Memorial Centre.
“That’s a potential first-round playoff match-up for us,” said Price.
The Rockets, however, are thinking the same thing.
