2013 Memorial Cup: London Knights win, Saskatoon punches out; post-game questions

SASKATOON, Sask. — London located a little of its swagger, while Saskatoon staggered to the finish line.

The tiebreaker game was an open-and-shut case, with with Alex Broadhurst, Bo Horvat, Chris Tierney and Brett Welychka each posting two-point nights during the Knights' 6-1 win over the emotionally spent Blades. It creates a London-Portland Winterhawks semifinal Friday, with the Halifax Mooseheads awaiting the victor.

"It's still not our goal and it's still not the same team that gave us the 9-2 beating," said Knights forward Ryan Rupert, alluding to the Mooseheads.

"Coming back from a 9-2 loss with a big one is a confidence-booster. It's also big for our goalie [Jake Patterson] to let one [goal] in after they've been a bit shaky."

In a 24-hour span, the Blades went from needing to win one period to advance directly to the final to being eliminated rather easily. Their unravelling accelerated after a fruitless four-minute power play in the second — London had three shots on the penalty kill while only giving up one — followed an undisciplined penalty that led to Seth Griffith burying the 2-0 goal.

"Tonight, we ran out of gas," said Blades coach-GM Lorne Molleken, whose team went 1-3 while being outscored 15-9. "I thought that we played fairly well in the three round-robin games even though we were outchanced in every game. [Goalie Andrey] Makarov was tremendous. After that Halifax game [which the Blades won on Sunday] there was so much emotion around it with the team and the fans. We came down and we just couldn't regain that emotion and that energy. Our players have nothing to be ashamed about. After 51 days after hard practice [after the Blades were swept in the first round of the WHL playoffs], they left it on the ice."

Saskatoon is only the second host team in the past decade to fall short of the semifinal, joining the 2009 Rimouski Océanic. Eight of the previous nine host teams went to the final. On with the post-game questions:

A turbulent regular season, the not-for-virgin-ears On The Edge documentary, first team out of the Dub playoffs and first team gone from the Memorial Cup ... so how will the Blades be remembered? It was like the exact opposite of a hockey novel written by Yann Martel would turn out, wasn't it? The Blades maintained that they belonged in a conversation with Halifax, London and Portland. They appeared to for the first four days of the tournament, then it got real.

"We as a team faced a lot of different adversities, a lot of different pressures," said Molleken, who might not return in the dual coach-GM role next season. "When I look back on this year, it was a tremendous learning experience for all of us."

The loss put the lid on the junior days of New York Rangers signing Josh Nicholls and overage linemates Michael Ferland and Brenden Walker.

"Nicholls was tremendous for us the whole tournament," said Molleken. "He was with us right from his bantam draft year. He's a proud Blade. The Rangers have signed him, so he'll move on to bigger and better things. It's always hard to watch something come to end for all three of our 20-year-olds. They took it extremely hard.

Why did Dale Hunter come back with Patterson in goal? The Knights coach noted that Anthony Stolarz, who made 18 starts in a row in the OHL playoffs and was in for London's first two games here, might be worn down. Ultimately, Patterson rated another shot after being mercy-pulled against the Mooseheads.

"The Halifax game wasn't a fair assessment of Jake," Hunter said. "We were bad defensively and he had no chance on the goals. That's why i went back to him, because he's a good goalie."

"I don't think there has ever been a lack of confidence in our goaltending," London captain Scott Harrington added. "We gave up nine, but you can't blame the goaltending. It's the five guys in front of them who are causing the problems."

What was the critical adjustment for the Knights? Hunter reunited the rambunctious Rupert boys, Toronto Maple Leafs-drafted centre Ryan Rupert and his twin, left wing Matt Rupert, with Griffith, their best right-handed shot. The trio chipped away at the Blades' ebbing resolve with a strong cycle early in the second period.

Later in the frame, Ryan Rupert drew an after-the-whistle cross-checking penalty on Blades defenceman Matt Pufahl. Griffith split the defence and scored on the ensuing power play, then London piggybacked on that goal to go up 3-0.

"It's good to get back," Ryan Rupert said. I think the last game was a wake-up call coming into tonight and now we have to go into tomorrow the same way, playing the body."

"With the combinations we have at the moment, all our lines can cycle," Griffith said. "Matt and Ryan love to get in the corners and play the dirty game. I can work up top and they can get me the puck.

That option wasn't available to Hunter in the OHL playoffs, when Matt Rupert was injured.

"Matt's coming back from injury so we just had to ease him in," the coach said. "He's 100 per cent and ready to go now."

Teams playing for the second night in a row are 0-3 and have been outscored 19-5. So why should one think London will be up to putting its best foot forward vs. Portland on Friday? One variable is that the win was in the can early after a three-goal, 66-second blitz by the Knights in the five minutes of the third period. Hunter was able to rest his frontline players, perhaps conserving some energy for the Winterhawks.

"It was huge, jumping out to a 6-0 lead early in the third period so we could rest some key guys," Griffith said.

Portland will be the favourite on Friday night by virtue of its earlier win over London, its added amount of rest and oh yeah, Seth Jones on the blueline. London, at the very least, should give a better accounting of itself than it did earlier in the week. Whether that will be enough to spoil a Seth Jones-Nathan MacKinnon showdown on Sunday remains to be seen.

"We're really looking forward to it," Harrington said. "We didn't give Portland our best game last time. It'll be important for us to get off to a good start and go from there.

"It's not our first back-to-back in the tournament or in the season," Harrington added. "It's something that's not new to us."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.