Skinner gives Swift Current hope all is not lost yet

Stuart Skinner was ’tending and trending.

On Monday at the Brandt Centre, the Swift Current Broncos goaltender was so Stu-pendous in a 2-1 Memorial Cup loss to the Hamilton Bulldogs that his good name was trending across Canada on Twitter.

Skinner made 54 saves, many of them extraordinary, in a valiant effort to keep the WHL champions in a preliminaryround game against the OHL kingpins.

After the first period, Hamilton held a modest lead (1-0) despite having outshot Swift Current 22-4.

“Without Stu, the score could have gotten out of hand really quickly,” Broncos head coach and director of player personnel Manny Viveiros correctly noted after Swift Current’s record fell to 0-2.

The Broncos, who face the host Regina Pats in Wednesday’s preliminary-round finale, will likely require another gem from Skinner to avoid becoming the third consecutive WHL champion to go 0-3 at the Memorial Cup.

If any goaltender in the CHL’s championship tournament is capable of single-handedly carrying his team to victory, it’s Skinner. His sensational spring has included six shutouts in the 2018 WHL post-season — how was he not named the playoffs’ MVP? — and has carried over into Swift Current’s first Memorial Cup appearance in 25 years.

Broncos captain Glenn Gawdin noted he is “running out of words” to describe Skinner’s typically tremendous play. Welcome to the club. On Monday, as Skinner repelled one prime scoring chance after another, this seasoned scribbler attempted to remember a comparable goaltending performance at the Brandt Centre.

A 1996 playoff marathon between the Pats and Lethbridge Hurricanes came to mind. The otherworldly play of Regina goaltender Chad Mercier and his opposite number, David Brumby, carried into the fourth overtime session. Josh Holden finally scored — at 1:29 a.m. — to give Regina a 3-2 victory.

Pats legend Ed Staniowski also sparkled on the premises, despite having graduated from the majorjunior ranks two years before the team’s current venue opened.

In September of 1981, Staniowski and the Winnipeg Jets opposed the St. Louis Blues in an NHL pre-season game at the then-Agridome. The Jets, for some reason, opted against dressing virtually all of their premier players and iced a beerleague-calibre lineup of skaters.

Undaunted, Staniowski made a seemingly unending series of acrobatic saves to backstop Winnipeg to a victory only the true believers can recall.

Also worth noting is Josh Harding, who was named the WHL’s player of the year for the 2002-03 season after rescuing his team night after night.

But, honestly, I cannot recall anything that can top Skinner’s command performance of Monday night — when Hamilton’s Marian Studenic snapped a 1-1 tie with 2:01 left in the third period.

“I’m going to try to bring whatever I brought (Monday) into my next game,” Skinner said after being the easiest possible firststar selection. “It worked for the most part.

“Obviously, I believe I can do better. If I made that last save, we could still be playing right now and maybe we would have won. I’m going to make sure that I’m better on Wednesday.”

If that is even possible.