By François Biber

Blades fall short in their MasterCard Memorial Cup opener

May 18, 2013 | 8:37 AM

In front of more than 10,000 fans at Credit Union Centre, the Saskatoon Blades came up just short falling to the London Knights 3-2.

The loss didn't come easy for the Knights who credit the Blades' netminder Andrey Makarov for almost stealing the show.

“He's a hell of a goaltender and he stood on his head and really kept his team in there, he made saves when he had to. It was tough,” said Knights forward Max Domi.

Makarov made 30 saves in the game, none bigger than the handful of saves he made in the second period when Saskatoon battled against a five-on-three powerplay.

The Saskatoon Blades opened the scoring eight minutes into the game. A scramble in front of Anthony Stolarz ended with the puck on the stick of Josh Nicholls who wasted no time potting one past the goalline.

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The lead however was short-lived as the Knights came back and it only took five minutes after the Nicholls goal for the Ontario Hockey League champions to tie it up.

A bouncing puck in front of Makarov was eventually corralled by Brett Welychka who shot it over Makarov's shoulder.

In the second period, Blades defenceman Duncan Siemens coughed the puck up in the neutral zone on a routine breakout, giving the Knights an odd-man rush as the eventual go-ahead goal as Bo Horvat fed the puck to Seth Griffiths who then beat Makarov with a backhand shot.

With just under five minutes to play in the second period, Nicholls hooked up with Michael Ferland to tie the game 2-2, scoring his second of the game.

Saskatoon fell into penalty trouble in the third, giving London the chance to regain the lead. Six minutes into the third period Nikita Zadorov jumped into the powerplay and slid one past Makarov for the eventual game-winner.

“I thought as the game went on we got stronger and stronger,” said shutdown man Duncan Siemens.

“I think we proved a lot tonight, we had a solid effort for our time off. We played a really good hockey team, we had our chances to beat them tonight and we'll only get stronger each game.”

For Nicholls it was about proving to them and to the country that they belong at the MasterCard Memorial Cup and he thinks the boys in blue accomplished that.

“Five on five I feel like we dominated and we're just going to keep pushing the pace and hopefully get better results,” said Nicholls.

Blades' head coach and general manager Lorne Molleken applauded his team's effort, understanding that 51 days of practice while other teams were still in playoffs might have played a factor in the final score.

“We put ourselves in a position to win a hockey game and we just came up short, our guys should hold their heads up high with the effort they put in tonight.

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