Portland, OR – The Saskatoon Blades have been humbled by the high-powered Portland Winterhawks on Sunday evening, going down by a final score of 8-0.

Portland got down to business almost immediately, scoring within the first 3:34 minutes of play. By the end of the first period they held a firm 4-0 lead over Saskatoon.

The Blades gradually improved throughout the game, but were unable to completely halt the Winterhawks from exploding offensively, as the home side notched three more goals in the second plus a single goal in the third period to round out the game.

Equally impressive as the Winterhawks’ scoring feats was Joel Hofer, Nolan Maier’s goaltending tandem partner on Team WHL earlier this month, who stopped all 22 shots the Blades’ threw at him for his sixth WHL career shutout.

Koen MacInnes came in for relief in the second period – stopping 21 of 25 shots he faced. Defenceman Radek Kucerik led the team in shots on goal with three, while Matej Toman won 11/14 face-offs he took.

The Bridge City Bunch now have two days off before tackling their final American opponent of this road trip: the Tri-City Americans on Wednesday Night. Puck drop is at 9:05pm CST in Kennewick, Washington.

Saskatoon’s next home game is on December 7th for Girls Rock! Night against the Kelowna Rockets, featuring a pre-game empowerment talk from NASCAR Pinty’s Series Driver Shantel Kalika & the Saskatoon Valkyries of the WWCFL.

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