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| Noah Gregor, left, celebrates his winning goal for the Raiders. |
Playing before
7,077 spectators on Wednesday at Rogers Place, Leason and Gregor each came up
with singles as the Raiders downed the host Edmonton Oil Kings 2-1 in a gritty
road playoff victory.
With the
win, the Raiders even the best-of-seven series up at 2-2. Game 5 is set for
Friday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert with a 7 p.m. local
start time.
Wednesday’s
game was a big bounce back effort for the Raiders, who had lost two straight
games in the series. One of those setbacks included getting drubbed 5-1 by the
Oil Kings in Game 3 on Tuesday night in Edmonton.
Raiders
head coach Marc Habscheid said all the team’s coaches needed to do was have
their players watch a little video to get a more inspired effort in Game 4.
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| Brett Leason scored for the Raiders in the second period. |
“Coaches and players, we get each other. We just let them
watch last night’s game this morning after breakfast and just asked them after
at the pre-game meal what they thought. They’re smart.
“They just had enough, and the Raiders are back. We’re happy
with our game.”
After the
two sides played through a scoreless first period, Leason gave the Raiders a
1-0 lead when he sniped home a shot from the right slot to the left corner of
the Edmonton goal.
The tally
was Leason’s first point of the series with the Oil Kings.
His goal
was caused as the Raiders went into the Edmonton zone on the forecheck. Raiders
overage centre Dante Hannoun was working on the right side boards against a
couple of Oil Kings players, and he cause the puck to squirt out to Leason in
the open.
From there,
Leason finished the play to put the Raiders ahead. He was pleased to finally
net a goal again.
“It meant a lot,” said Leason. “I was always getting the
chances, but a hot goalie and I just couldn’t get the bounces.
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| Noah Gregor scored for the Raiders in the third period. |
“Today, I was finally able to get one, and it happened to be
a big goal. It gets us as a team the momentum and kept going from there.”
Just 2:13
into the third, Gregor gave the Raiders a 2-0 edge again with hard work on the
forecheck. After getting a turnover in the Edmonton zone, Raiders rookie
right-winger Ozzy Wiesblatt backhanded a pass from behind the icing line at the
right side of the Edmonton goal to Gregor in front of the net, and he promptly
one-timed home the insurance marker.
Ultimately,
Gregor’s goal would hold up as the game winner.
“This is a huge game for us,” said Gregor. “We didn’t really
like our performance last night.
“We thought we could play a lot better. I thought for most
of the game we did a really good job of that. I thought everyone was working
hard.
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| Raiders fans at Rogers Place cheer one of their team’s goals. |
On his
goal, Gregor was impressed with the setup pass he received from Wiesblatt.
“It was a great play,” said Gregor. “Ozzy (Wiesblatt) is
able to make plays for a younger guy, and he made a good one there.”
With 6:06
remaining in the third, Oil Kings third-year defenceman Wyatt McLeod received a
pass from left-winger Quinn Benjafield at the point. McLeod fired a shot through
a screen into the Prince Albert goal to cut the Raiders lead to 2-1.
The Oil
Kings mounted pressure in the Prince Albert zone over the final two minutes of
the third but couldn’t find the equalizer.
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| Wyatt McLeod scored for the Oil Kings in the third period. |
“Obviously, I don’t think we played our best game tonight,
but again, I think they brought their best game of the series so far,” said Oil
Kings head coach Brad Lauer. “They had a little bit more urgency in their than
we did
“In that sense, that is the outcome of the game. I didn’t
think we executed. We didn’t skate like we did, but also, some of that is what
they did.
“We didn’t do a good enough job of getting away from them.”
Prince
Albert finished first overall in the WHL’s regular season posting a 54-10-2-2
record and was rated second in the final CHL Top 10 rankings. As a result, the
Raiders are pegged as favourites in the Eastern Conference final against
Edmonton.
Looking back
on the first three games of the series against the Oil Kings, Habscheid thought
his team was missing a step, but his Raiders looked like themselves on
Wednesday. He said that was the best game Prince Albert played in the series.
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| Ozzy Wiesblatt had a beauty assist on the Raiders winning goal. |
“Sometime, whatever happens and you don’t get the win. In
playoffs, wins matter, but we needed to get our swagger, I think our speed and
our determination back. We got that back tonight.
“The win is a bonus. It is 2-2. Even if we would have let
this slip, we would have felt good about our game heading back, because we
played the right way tonight.”
The Oil
Kings topped the Central Division and finished fifth overall in the WHL
standings with a 42-18-4-4 mark, and they were an honourable mention in the
final CHL Top 10 rankings.
Lauer said
his team just needs to reset going into Game 5.
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| The Raiders celebrate their win on Wednesday night. |
“It is just a matter of the will and the want, and I thought
they had a little bit better than we did tonight.”
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comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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