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“Wow, I mean, that’s impressive,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas. “Particularly with the amount of receivers that have come through Edmonton and the high-calibre receivers that have come through Edmonton.

“For him to do something like that is special. He was quiet for most of the night, and then at opportune times he makes the most of his opportunities. So he’s capable on every play of making something happen.”

Like a 77-yard catch and run to open third-quarter scoring to help break open what began as a defensive chess match in a 29-20 win over the first-place Calgary Stampeders on a Saturday night that was more about quality catches than quantity for Zylstra.

“Our offence is able to spread the ball around, it’s dictated by what the does and when they choose to take guys away, they take guys away,” Maas said. “It just depends on what positions we’re putting those guys in.

“So as long as Mike’s making good decisions, the ball gets spread around to where it needs to be and the guys just have to make the most of their opportunities and Brandon does more often than not.”

Photo by Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS

It’s that reliability that keeps Reilly coming back to Zylstra, who tends to make noise even on nights when defences try to keep him quiet.

“He’s had a great season, there’s no question about it, he just makes plays and we’re going to continue to find creative ways to get him the ball,” Reilly said. “He ran a great route on that corner route for a touchdown. All I had to do was touch it off and once he caught it, the guy wasn’t in position to make the tackle and made a last-ditch effort to dive.