Blades’ Robins has a unique streak

Tristen Robins is riding a twogame Teddy Bear Toss goal-scoring streak.

For the second straight year, Robins scored first for the Saskatoon Blades in the Teddy Bear Toss game against the rival Prince Albert Raiders.

Robins got things going Sunday as the Blades bounced back from two unflattering setbacks earlier in the week with a convincing 4-1 victory over the Raiders before a Sasktel Centre crowd announced at 5,344 fans.

“For sure, it’s a very unique streak to put together,” admitted Robins, whose goal at 10:44 of the first period, two seconds after a Blades power play ended, led to a cascade of stuffed animals being thrown onto the ice and later to be donated to the Children’s Wish Foundation.

“It’s a pretty cool experience, for sure.”

Saskatoon — which had suffered back-to-back losses Friday to the Kamloops Blazers (5-2) and Tuesday to the Medicine Hat Tigers (11-3) — got back in the win column and improved its record to 15-15-1-2.

“We’ve been a little bit disappointed because we haven’t been stringing the wins together as we would have liked,” said Robins. “But going into the break with this big win against a good rival, for sure, is a good feeling.”

For Robins, it was a good feeling to be the Teddy Bear Toss goal-scorer yet again, even though it may end up costing him.

“There was kind of a joke going around the (dressing) room that, if I scored that goal again, I’d be fined,” Robins said with a smile.

“It was kind of ironic I got that goal again. I thought the Teddy Bear Toss goal would be passed on, but I’m just super happy it was me.”

Chase Wouters, Zach Huber and Eric Florchuk also scored for Saskatoon, which led 1-0 and 2-0 by periods and outshot Prince Albert 28-25.

“Obviously, these past few weeks haven’t gone the way we would have liked,” said Huber, who ripped a shot off the faceoff circle to give the Blades a 3-1 lead early in the third period.

“We knew it was going to be a big crowd today with the Teddy Bear Toss. We knew we had to give it all we had, the last game before the break, and I thought the guys did a good job.

“It’s a good feeling going into the break on a winning note.”

The Blades now head into the Christmas holiday break. They’ll return to action Dec. 27 in Prince Albert and Dec. 28 in Saskatoon against the Raiders.

Ozzy Wiesblatt scored the lone goal for Prince Albert, which falls to 20-9-3-1 but remains atop the Western Hockey League’s East Division.

“The break’s coming at a good time,” said Raiders head coach

There was kind of a joke going around the (dressing) room that, if I scored that goal again, I’d be fined.

Marc Habscheid.

“Three (games) in three (days) or two and a half (days), while they (Blades) rested (Saturday), I thought the first period, we were just there and I thought our focus was better for the last two periods but we didn’t generate much.”

Blades associate coach Ryan Marsh picked up his first win as acting head coach while Mitch Love is away with Team Canada’s national junior team.

“We’ve had a little bit of a tough week here,” said Marsh. “I liked the resiliency of our group to stay the course here and come today and play a real good, solid 60 minutes of hockey when they could have been thinking maybe of that break that’s coming up here.”