"We’re healthy this year, which is nice. Last year, we were banged up going into the playoffs."
The red-hot Brandon Lisowsky is carrying a torch into the Western Hockey League playoffs.
The Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick scored five goals in the last three games of the regular season to finish with 38 goals and 32 assists for 70 points in 65 games with the Saskatoon Blades.
Lisowsky appears to be heating up at the right time with the WHL Eastern Conference playoffs starting Friday night against the Regina Pats at SaskTel Centre.
Game-time is 7 p.m.
“Personally, I’m feeling really good,” said Lisowsky. “The last couple of weeks, I’ve been playing my game, I feel like. Having (Egor) Sidorov and (Trevor) Wong on the line, especially with Sidorov being back, those guys have helped me so much. We complement each other. It’s fun playing with those two.”
Saskatoon enters the WHL playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 48-15-4-1 record and 101 points.
Regina comes in at No. 6 with a 34-30-3-1 record and 72 points.
Wong led all scorers in the six-game season series with 15 points. Lisowsky chipped in with nine points.
“They’re a run-and-gun team,” Lisowsky said of the Pats. “They’ve got some great offensive guys. We’ve got a plan against them. We need to really dial in on our defensive zone, but also I think our offensive zone is super important with them. We’ve got to create chances. We’ve just got to keep putting pucks to the net. We need to have guys in front to screen it and have sets of sticks to get rebounds.
“(Jayden) Wiens, (Vaughn) Watterodt, (Lukas) Hansen and those guys really shut down that top line. Those are our shutdown guys and they did an awesome job (last Friday). There are things we can improve on. I thought the energy and positivity was really good (last Friday). I thought the fans gave us some energy. They were really loud and that helped. But there are some things we can learn from going into the first-round match-up against Regina.”
Misha Volotovskii is expected to be ready to return to the lineup, meaning that the Blades will have everybody back to start the playoffs other than forward Tyler Parr, who continues to recover from a shoulder injury.
BLADE BITS: Aidan De La Gorgendiere, Trevor Wong and goalie Austin Elliott were all named WHL East Division second-team all-stars … The Blades were 8-for-19 on the power play against the Pats this season during their season series.
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