Blades go down with big final battle in 5-3
defeat
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| The Raiders celebrate their series win over the Blades. |
You have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good.
On Wednesday night at the SaskTel Centre, the puck was
taking all sorts of positive bounces for the Prince Albert Raiders in the first
period in Game 4 of their best-of-seven WHL Eastern Conference Semifinal Series
against their archrivals in the host Saskatoon Blades. Thanks to three positive
bounce goals, the Raiders surged ahead of the Blades 4-1 in the first period
holding a 15-4 edge in shots on goal in Game 4 of a WHL Eastern Conference
Semifinal Series.
With the Raiders having built a 3-0 series lead in rather
dominant fashion, it could have been easy for the Blades to pack it in after
the three positive bounce goals went the Raiders way in the opening 20 minutes
of Game 4 coming away with the thought that it is just not meant to happen for
them.
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| Raiders fans celebrate their team’s series sweep. |
The Blades battled back with their best two periods of the
series cutting the Raiders lead to 4-3 in the second period. Star right-winger
Hunter Laing and captain Tyler Parr fired home goals that got the host side
back into the game.
Inside the final 70 seconds of the second, a puck from a battle
along the left boards at centre ice came out to Raiders star centre Max Heise.
Heise jetted into the Saskatoon zone on a rush down the left wing and wired a
bullet shot short side to the top left corner of the Blades net to make the
Raiders lead stand at 5-3 with 57.7 seconds to play in the frame. That tally, which
was the first of the post-season for Heise, proved to be a dagger goal.
The two sides proceeded to skate to a stalemate in the third
allowing that 5-3 score to hold up as the game’s final outcome. The Raiders
swept the set 4-0 to advance to the Eastern Conference Championship Series for
the first time since 2019, when they last won the WHL title.
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| David Lewandowski reacts to the Blades season coming to an end. |
At game’s end, the 6,361 spectators in the building, who
were engaged with the contest all night, paid respects to both squads. The
Raiders faithful, who were present in large numbers making just a 75 minute
drive down Highway 11 to “The Bridge City,” celebrated the fact their squad was
going to a conference final in what has been a memorable season.
The Blades faithful, which still made up the majority of the
crowd, gave their team a rousing final salute. In the first round of the WHL
Playoffs, the Blades pulled off an inspiring seven game series upset of the
heavily favoured Edmonton Oil Kings to set up the rivalry series against the
Raiders.
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| A quartet of Blades supporters take in post-game happenings. |
Raiders captain Justice Christensen was pleased his squad
got the win on Wednesday to advance to the WHL’s final four in the post-season.
“It means a lot,” said Christensen. “The guys battled hard
tonight and are definitely enjoying it right now.
“We will move on here pretty quick, but enjoy it for the
time being.”
With that noted, Christensen was part of the Raiders
underdog squad that fell to the Blades in five games in the opening round of
the WHL Playoffs in 2024, when the Blades finished first overall in the WHL
regular season standings. The Blades went to the Eastern Conference final
falling 3-2 in overtime in Game 7 at home to the Moose Jaw Warriors, who would
move on to win the WHL title.
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| Rowan Calvert give a final salute to the SaskTel Centre crowd. |
The Raiders star defenceman was happy his squad returned the
favour to the Blades this season, when Prince Albert was favoured to beat the
Saskatoon side.
“It was nice for sure to get that one and do it four,” said
Christensen. “I definitely didn’t forget about that one in 2024.
“I had that in the back of my mind the whole time, so it was
nice to get it done.”
Parr, who exhausted his WHL eligibility with Wednesday’s
setback, was on the victorious side in the 2024 series with the Blades. He didn’t
like being on the losing end of the series this time, but he enjoyed the fight
his team put up.
“It sucks losing to the Raiders, but I’m super proud of this
group over the year,” said Parr, who graduates from the team along with standout left-winger Rowan Calvert. “I am super proud of the effort against them.
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| The Raiders and Blades shake hands at the conclusion of Game 4. |
“I am super proud of the effort in this series. We fought
right to the end, so I’m super proud of the guys.”
The positive bounces for the Raiders started just 68 seconds
into Wednesday’s contest. Raiders star centre Braeden Cootes had the puck below
the icing line in the right corner of the Saskatoon zone. Cootes banked the
puck off the back of Blades star netminder Evan Gardner into the Saskatoon net
to put the visitors up 1-0.
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| Imports Alisher Sarkenov, left, and Elias Pul visit at game’s end. |
A short time later, Blades star import left-winger David
Lewandowski rang a shot off the post of the Prince Albert net.
Moments after that scoring chance, the Raiders would cash in
on their second positive bounce. Raiders 16-year-old breakout rookie defenceman
Brock Cripps banked a shot off teammate in 19-year-old standout left-winger
Maddix McCagherty into the Saskatoon net to push the Raiders lead out to 2-0 at
the 4:53 mark of the opening frame. McCagherty was actually being guarded well by
sophomore defenceman Jack Kachkowski, when Prince Albert’s second goal banked
home off the Raiders forward.
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| Members of the Raiders faithful salutes their team. |
Just 79 seconds after that tally, Raiders standout rookie
import defenceman Matyas Man fired home a shot from a sharp angle at the left
side of the Saskatoon net to the top right corner of the Blades goal to make
the Raiders lead sit at 3-0. The Blades immediately called a timeout to regroup
after that tally.
The Blade proceeded to get a break just 38 seconds later,
when Lewandowski put home an off-speed shot close to the blue-line along the right
boards for his fourth of the post-season to trim the Raiders lead to 3-1.
Lewandownski’s shot went through an inadvertent screen by a Raiders player
skating through the play that blocked the visit of Prince Albert’s star import
netminder Michal Orsulak.
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| Max Heise scored the Raiders fifth goal, and it was a big one. |
Blades offensive-defenceman Brayden Klimpke would proceed to
hit a goalpost setting the stage for the next big positive bounce for the
Raiders.
With 2:57 remaining in the opening frame, Raiders star
defenceman Daxon Rudolph drove a shot on net that Gardner got a piece of. The
puck proceeded to fall into the crease of the Saskatoon net and started to
slowly creep towards the goal. Blades defenceman Jordan Martin went to play the
puck and inadvertently poked it into his own net to make the Raiders advantage
sit at 4-1.
“We were playing on them,” said Rudolph. “We were getting
pucks in, getting behind them and playing a fast game, which is hard to play
against.
“I think sometimes pucks can get bouncing when you’re rushing
plays and things like that. I don’t really know what the reason is, but
fortunate for us, we will take those bounces there in the first.”
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| Braeden Cootes had the Raiders first goal on Wednesday. |
The Blades proceeded to battle back in the second period,
where they outshot the Raiders 16-9. At the 11:39 mark of the frame, the Blades
got a gritty goal as Laing found a loose puck around the Prince Albert net
during a net scramble and popped it home to trim the Raiders lead to 4-2.
Just 2:51 later and working on a rare four-versus-three
power play, Parr drove a mid range shot home through a screen from the front of
the Prince Albert net to cut the Raiders lead to 4-3.
“The first wasn’t what we wanted at all obviously,” said
Parr. “They came out pretty hard.
“We just kind of said, ‘This is it.’ It is time to get
desperate. They’ve challenged us here, and it is how do we respond.
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| Brock Cripps (#12) works some creativity in the offensive zone. |
“There was only one option, and that was to do everything we
could to fight back into the game and we did that. It was a two-goal game, but
a bounce here, a bounce there, it could have been tied. I’m just super proud of
how we responded after the adversity in the first period, and I hope the guys
can learn from that.”
Heise proceeded to pot his insurance goal with 57.7 seconds
remaining in the second.
With about 13 minutes remaining in the third, Blades
standout centre Hayden Harsanyi rang a shot off the crossbar of the Prince
Albert net to further add to the total of bounces that did go in the direction
of the host side.
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| The Raiders celebrate a goal from Maddix McCagherty (#17). |
Orsulak stopped 23 shots to pick up the win in goal for the
Raiders. Evan Gardner turned away 25 shots to take the setback in net for the
Blades.
“I’m just really proud of our group, how we played,” said
Raiders head coach Ryan McDonald. “I thought our start was absolutely
tremendous as we got to our skating legs right away.
“Even the resilience throughout the game, the Blades pushed
hard. That is a real scrappy team over there, and again, they didn’t go away
and kept pushing us and again got the game close. We had to again buckle down
and get back to our game.
“Give our guys a lot of credit, we got into that third
period and really locked things down.”
Blades head coach Dan DaSilva was proud of how his club
responded, when it looked like things were going to go south fast for his club
in the opening frame.
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| Matyas Man scored the Raiders third goal on Wednesday. |
“I thought that it (the game) was unfortunate the way it
started,” said DaSilva. “I think our guys were excited, and they were ready to
go.
“We had a couple of bad breaks early and got behind the
eight ball right away. As we’ve seen all year long, there is no quit in our
group. They used the timeout and the intermission to reset and get back to
work.
“They played with so much pride in the last 40 minutes. They
weren’t going to say die. I thought we had our best period of the series in the
second period there.”
Going into this rivalry series, the Raiders were the
favourites.
They finished first in the WHL’s Eastern Conference and
second overall in the league with a 52-10-5-1 record during the regular season.
They were rated fourth in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings. In the first round of
the playoffs, Prince Albert eliminated the Red Deer Rebels, who were eighth in
the Eastern Conference, in five games.
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| Daxon Rudolph netted the winning goal for the Raiders. |
The Blades were sixth in the Eastern Conference and placed
10
th in the overall regular season standings with a 34-27-5-2 mark.
In the first round of the playoffs, they upset the Edmonton Oil Kings, who were
third in the Eastern Conference and fifth overall in the WHL, in seven games
taking Game 7 by a 3-2 score in overtime. In the seven games against the Oil
Kings, the Blades played their best hockey of the 2025-26 campaign.
DaSilva was pleased his squad bowed out on a note where they
battled hard in their Game 4 season ending loss to the Raiders in their Eastern
Conference semifinal.
“It was our best game of the series,” said DaSilva. “We still
came up short, hit a few posts, a couple of bad bounces.
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| The Blades celebrate a goal from captain Tyler Parr (#20). |
“It is behind us now. I am just proud of the group, proud of
the season and proud of everything that they gave. It is truly a pleasure to
stand in front of that group and coach them every day.
“They are hard workers. They’re good human beings and good
young men. We had a lot of fun this year.”
Before the playoffs started,
expectations were high that the Raiders would face the defending WHL champion
Medicine Hat Tigers in a heavyweight showdown in a best-of-seven Eastern
Conference Championship Series. The Tigers finished second overall in the WHL’s
Eastern Conference and third in the league’s overall standings at 50-10-5-3.
They were rated fifth in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings.
.JPG) |
| Tyler Parr ensures a young fan leaves with a big memory. |
On Wednesday, the Tigers finished off the other Eastern
Conference Semifinal Series in a 4-0 sweep posting a 5-2 victory over the
Hitmen in Calgary in Game 4 of that set. The heavyweight showdown between the
Raiders and the Tigers in the WHL Eastern Conference Championship Series will
happen with the schedule to be announced.
It is expected both clubs will have about eight off days
between games as the two Western Conference semifinal series are still ongoing.
The Tigers swept the Raiders in an Eastern Conference Semifinal Series a year
ago.
For now, the Raiders want to enjoy for a short time the fact
they swept away their archrivals in the Blades and are now 5-4 in all-time
post-season series between the two clubs.
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| The Blades give a final salute to their fans at the SaskTel Centre. |
“It feels good, obviously,” said Rudolph. “We have a long,
historic rivalry here against the Blades.
“To come out on top in this series is definitely big for us.
It is just a super happy feeling right now and super happy to get it done.”
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