Prince Albert and Oil Kings set for Game 1 on
Friday
The Raiders aim to give their fans more highs in their post-season journey. |
Battling through adversity will help his team as it continues to march through the WHL playoffs. The Raiders are set to open the best-of-seven WHL Eastern Conference Championship series against the visiting Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.
The Raiders
are coming off downing their archrivals the Saskatoon Blades in six games in a
WHL Eastern Conference semifinal series.
Before
meeting the Blades, the Raiders were on an impressive march through the 2018-19
campaign.
Raiders fans have been packing and rocking the Art Hauser Centre. |
Against the
Blades, the Raiders won the first two games at home and dropped Games 3 and 4
on the road in Saskatoon. With the series tied 2-2, the Raiders rolled off a
6-1 victory in Game 5 in Prince Albert and sealed the series win with a 6-3
victory in Game 6 last Sunday at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon.
Habscheid
remembers talking with his team after falling 4-1 in Game 4 and telling them
about the opportunity they had to change things when the momentum of the series
was going against them.
The Raiders faithful give their team a huge advantage at home. |
“We need to feel an upset stomach. We need to have sleepless
nights. We need to feel that anxiety. That is what you have to do to win.”
Habscheid
said being tied 2-2 with the Raiders was particularly challenging due to the
fact his Raiders felt they should have won Games 3 and 4 in Saskatoon. In those
two games, Blades star netminder Nolan Maier turned away 69-of-70 shots to back
his side to two wins.
The Blades,
who finished fourth overall in the WHL’s regular season standings with a
45-15-8 record and were an honourable mention in the final CHL Top 10 rankings,
took Game 3 of the series 1-0.
Dante Hannoun, left, leads the Raiders in post-season scoring. |
In the
conference final, the Raiders face the challenge of taking on another stubborn
foe in the Oil Kings. 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.
Edmonton
downed the Medicine Hat Tigers in a best-of-seven first round series in six games
and swept the Calgary Hitmen 4-0 in the other WHL Eastern Conference semifinal
series.
The Oil
Kings have been off since blanking the Hitmen 6-0 in Calgary on April 10.
Brett Leason topped the Raiders in regular season scoring. |
“We are looking forward to Edmonton.”
Star
right-winger Brett Leason led the Raiders in regular season scoring with 36
goals and 53 assists for 89 points, while posting a plus-55 rating in the
plus-minus department.
Overage
star centre Noah Gregor was second in regular season scoring for the Raiders
posting 43 goals and 45 assists for 88 points to go with a plus-49 rating.
Captain
Brayden Pachal put up the most points out of all the Raiders defenceman. The Estevan,
Sask., product racked up 15 goals and 36 assists for 51 points.
He topped
the entire WHL in plus-minus with a plus-76 rating. Defensive partner Zack
Hayes was second in the league in plus-minus with a plus-71 rating, while
contributing three goals and 24 assists on the offensive end.
Star
netminder Ian Scott had a spectacular regular season posting a 38-8-3 record, a
1.83 goals against average, a .932 save percentage and a team record eight
shutouts.
The Raiders will be without physical forward Justin Nachbaur for Game 1 of the series with the Oil Kings, because he will be sitting out the second of a two-game league imposed suspension. Nachbaur received the suspension for getting an interference major and a game misconduct in the Raiders Game 5 win over the Blades.
The Raiders will be without physical forward Justin Nachbaur for Game 1 of the series with the Oil Kings, because he will be sitting out the second of a two-game league imposed suspension. Nachbaur received the suspension for getting an interference major and a game misconduct in the Raiders Game 5 win over the Blades.
Noah Gregor has been stellar for the Raiders all season. |
“They battled hard,” said Hannoun. “They pushed every game,
and we pushed back.
“You have to give them credit.”
Captain
Trey Fix-Wolansky topped the Oil Kings in regular season scoring with 37 goals
and 65 assists for 102 points, while posting a plus-36 rating in the plus-minus
department.
Overage
centre Vince Loschiavo was second in team scoring with 37 goals and 25 assists
for 62 points. He leads the Oil Kings in post-season scoring with five goals
and five assists.
Offensive-defenceman
Conner McDonald topped all Edmonton blue-liners in scoring with 19 goals and 31
assists for 50 points to go with a plus-16 rating during the regular season.
Trey Fix-Wolansky will be looking to celebrate a number of Oil Kings goals. |
The Raiders
and Oil Kings met four times in the regular season, and Prince Albert won three
out of those four head-to-head encounters.
“We’ve had a good series with Edmonton all season too,” said
Raiders power forward Parker Kelly. “They are going to be another team that is
going to try and push us to our limits.”
The Raiders are appearing in the Eastern Conference final
for the first time since falling to the Brandon Wheat Kings in seven games back
in 2005, which is a playoff foray that is generally known in Prince Albert at “The
Run.”
Parker Kelly is looking to push the Raiders even further in the playoffs. |
“It is an amazing feeling,” said Pachal. “Obviously, small
market P.A. hasn’t seen a team like this in a while.
“It is fun to be back on the map. The city is buzzing all
the time. It is definitely a fun and a tough rink to play in back at the
Hauser.”
Home ice
advantage could prove to be big as the Raiders have yet to lose in five
post-season games at home and were 28-4-2 at the Art Hauser Centre during the
regular season.
So far in
the playoffs, attendance for Raiders home game hasn’t dipped below 3,000 at the
2,580 seat Art Hauser Centre. The last three Raiders home games were sellouts
with 3,289 people turning out for each of those contests.
Kelly said
his club gets pumped up from the home ice atmosphere.
“It is crazy,” said Kelly. “I’ve never see the rink like
that in Game 5 (in the 6-1 win over the Blades).
The Raiders faithful will be ready to bring it in the conference final. |
“There is going to be a lot of fan support, and we are going
to use that to our advantage.”
The winner
of the series between the Raiders and Oil Kings will take on the winner of the
WHL’s Western Conference Championship series between the Vancouver Giants and
Spokane Chiefs in the WHL final. The Giants finished second overall in the WHL
at 48-15-3-2, while the Chiefs were eighth overall at 40-21-5-2.
Saskatoon/P.A. get Canada Russia Series
games
The Blades and Raiders will each host a Canada Russia Series game. |
The Canada
Russia Series in an annual six-game event that is often used as a final
evaluation point for Hockey Canada to determine its final list of invites for
the final selection camp for Canada’s world junior team in December.
In the
series, a Russian national junior team will take on all-star teams from each of
Canada’s three major junior leagues. The Russian team will face all-star teams
from the QMJHL, OHL and the WHL twice each.
The
Saskatoon Blades will host the fifth game of the series on Nov. 13 at the
SaskTel Centre. The Prince Albert Raiders will host the sixth and final game of
the series on Nov. 14 at the Art Hauser Centre. The start times of the games
are still to be determined.
Saskatoon
hosted games in this series on two previous occasions in 2005 and 2014. Prince
Albert hosted this series on one other occasion back in 2008.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
-------