SATURDAY SPORTS PAGE: BLADES STILL ALIVE

SASKATOON – The Saskatoon Blades refuse to go away without a fight.

After dropping the first three games of their Western Hockey League Eastern Conference semifinal series to the Red Deer Rebels, the Blades have battled to avoid elimination, winning 4-2 on Wednesday in Alberta, and 6-3 on Friday night at SaskTel Centre.

Egor Sidorov and Tanner Molendyk each scored twice for the Blades on home ice, while Aidan De La Gorgendiere and Jayden Wiens netted singles. Trevor Wong chipped in with three assists.

Kai Uchacz scored twice for the Rebels, while Ollie Josephson added a single.

The Blades outshot the Rebels 31-17, and led 3-2 after the first period and 4-3 heading into the third. The Blades went 3-for-6 on the power play, while the Rebels were 0-for-3.

Game 6 is scheduled for Sunday in Red Deer.

SJHL FINAL

The SJHL Final shifted venues Friday night for Game 3 as the Flin Flon Bombers hosted the Battlefords North Stars in the SJHL Final. However, it was the road team scoring early and often and as a result it would be the Stars walking away with a 6-2 win and now own a commanding 3-0 series lead heading into Game 4 Saturday night at the Whitney Forum.

NHL ROUND-UP

LOS ANGELES – Trevor Moore’s goal at 3:24 of overtime lifted the Los Angeles Kings to a 3-2 win over the visiting Edmonton Oilers on Friday night to give the Kings a 2-1 lead in the best of-seven NHL playoffs series. Alex Iafallo and Adrian Kempe also scored for the Kings, while Connor McDavid scored twice for the Oilers.

NEW YORK – Kyle Palmieri and Matt Martin scored 44 seconds apart late in the third period and the New York Islanders beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 Friday night to cut their first-round series deficit to 2-1.

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) – Taylor Hall had a goal and an assist, Linus Ullmark stopped 29 shots and Boston topped Florida 4-2 in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series, earning the Bruins a 2-1 series lead.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Mats Zuccarello scored twice and Ryan Hartman had a three-point game as Minnesota beat Dallas 5-1 to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.

MLB

NEW YORK (AP) – Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put Toronto ahead in the first inning with his 11th home run in the Bronx and Brandon Belt drove in four runs to lead the Blue Jays over the New York Yankees 6-1 Friday night.

Yusei Kikuchi (3-0) allowed one run and four hits in six innings and has a 1.91 ERA over five starts and one relief appearance at Yankee Stadium. Erik Swanson, Trevor Richards and Yimi Garcia finished a five-hitter.

Wearing powder blue uniforms, Toronto went ahead against Domingo German (1-2) when George Springer doubled on the game’s first pitch and two batters later Guerrero hit a drive into the visitors bullpen in left-center for his fourth home run this season. Guerrero is batting .296 (37 for 125) in 32 games at Yankee Stadium.

Belt hit a two-run homer in the sixth and a two-run double against Albert Abreu in the eighth, a ball off the arm of a lunging Aaron Judge in right. Belt had gone 38 games without a home run since July 17 for San Francisco off Milwaukee’s Jason Alexander.

NBA

TORONTO – Masai Ujiri believes that change has to start at the top. That includes him, the Toronto Raptors team president.

Ujiri was insistent that the Raptors have to refresh their culture after a disappointing season led to the firing of head coach Nick Nurse on Friday. Ujiri said that he personally has to do “many things” to recapture the energy of Toronto’s first NBA championship team in 2019.

“Look at the roster maybe in a different way. We have to figure out shooting on this roster in some kind of way. We have to figure out who fits and who doesn’t fit,” said Ujiri during a news conference after Nurse’s dismissal was announced. “On the overall, maybe manage people better.

“Maybe see things a little bit deeper because when we hire people I let them do their jobs. That’s been a strength of ours the last 10 years here but I pay attention now a little bit more.”

Toronto missed the playoffs and finished ninth in the Eastern Conference with a 41-41 regular-season record, losing to the Chicago Bulls in the NBA play-in tournament. Ujiri said the Raptors were not themselves this season and that Toronto’s winning culture of four years ago somehow got lost.

Rebuilding that culture will take some major changes, said Ujiri.

“You have to shock, you have to hit, there has to be some kind of friction some way to do that,” said Ujiri. “I think we follow the culture of an incredible city, people, humility, everything we stand for here, togetherness.

“We lost some of that but I don’t think it’s something you cannot build right back up again.”

(Canadian Press/SJHL.ca)