The Saskatoon Blades are an experienced, rugged squad that can rack up wins both on the ice and in the alley.

Red Deer Rebels captain Colin Archer suggested that if the Blades decide to take the latter approach into the Western Hockey League playoffs, they may suffer as a result.

“They’re a team that’s very physical, that’s a big part of their game,” said Archer, looking ahead to the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final with the Blades starting at 7 p.m. Saturday in Saskatoon.

“They have a lot of big guys, a lot of tougher-type players. But the playoffs aren’t really about fights, so there’s no reason to be intimidated by those guys. If we play a disciplined game and stick to our systems we might be able to get the upper hand with power plays and catch them a little off guard that way.

“We won’t back off from our aggressive play at all, and our discipline and sticking to our systems is going to get us through this series.”

The Rebels won just one of four regular-season meetings with the Blades, posting a rather convincing 5-1 victory Dec. 5 at the Centrium, two months after being man-handled in a 6-3 loss to the visitors. Red Deer also fell 4-3 in a shootout at the Credit Union Centre Dec. 12 and were blasted 8-1 by the host Blades Feb. 17.

“This is a team we’ve beat before and we should have split the season series. In the shootout loss we gave up a late goal,” said Archer. “There’s no one in this dressing room who thinks we can’t beat these guys (in a playoff). It’s a team that no one is afraid of and we’re all confident that we can win this series.”

That being said, the Blades demand respect after finishing third in the Eastern Conference with a 46-19-3-4 record and 99 points, 16 more than the 39-28-0-5 Rebels.

Archer agreed.

“They’ve come a long way from where they were, say, three years ago,” he said. “They weren’t a very good team at that time, but they’ve got more experience and talent now. They’ve earned respect in this league because they’re strong system-wise and they play a disciplined game.”

And while the Blades were a mere 5-5-0-0 over their final 10 games, they were hotter down the stretch than the Rebels, who were 3-6-0-1 during that same span.

Archer insisted he and his teammates have already put their poor regular-season finish behind them.

“We had a bit of a rough end of the season, but the nice thing about that is we wipe the slate clean and the only numbers that matter now is it’s a zero-zero series between us and Saskatoon,” he said. “Now we’re going to win four games before them.

“I’d rather go into the playoffs a little bit down and having to work harder than being a little too high, especially against a good team like Saskatoon.”

The second game goes Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Credit Union Centre before the series switches to the Centrium for Games 3 and 4 Wednesday and Thursday. Fifth to seventh games, if required, will be played March 27 in Saskatoon, March 29 in Red Deer and two days later in Saskatoon.

gmeachem@redddeeradvocate.com