All pressure off Raiders after opening loss at Memorial Cup

Noah Gregor had the Raiders only goal on Friday.

    The Prince Albert Raiders have nothing to lose and everything to gain going forward at the Memorial Cup tournament.

    On Friday before 9,926 spectators at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, the Raiders fell 4-1 to the host Mooseheads in the opening game of the tournament that determines the CHL champion.

    With the loss, the WHL champion has fallen in 11 straight games at the Memorial Cup. The last time a WHL champion posted a win at the Memorial Cup came back on May 29, 2015, when the Kelowna Rockets hammered the host Remparts 9-3 in Quebec City, Quebec, in a semifinal contest.

    A WHL team has only succeeded in winning one of the last 10 Memorial Cup titles.

    With that loss, the fact the Raiders topped the WHL regular season standings with a 54-10-2-2 record and were rated second in the final CHL Top 10 rankings will be a faded recollection.

    At the Memorial Cup tournament level, the expectation for the Raiders going forward will be that they end up like the other WHL entries that participated at the last 10 Memorial Cups excluding the Edmonton Oil Kings in 2014. When they return to Prince Albert, the expectation is the Raiders will not have the Memorial Cup in hand.

    Any thoughts of winning the Memorial Cup have to be put on the back burner until they break the losing streak the WHL champion has at this event.
    At the moment, the notion that WHL teams taking part in the Memorial Cup tournament will not be as strong as their counterparts in the OHL and QMJHL has just been reinforced. That notion won’t be lifted until the WHL champion finally wins a game again at this event.

Ian Scott made 33 saves in goal for the Raiders on Friday.

    The Mooseheads weren’t your ordinary host team that experienced a long wait after an early exit from their league playoffs.

    Halifax finished first in the QMJHL’s Eastern Conference in the regular season with a 49-15-2-2 mark and was rated eighth in the final CHL Top 10 rankings. The Mooseheads fell in the QMJHL final to the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies 4-2 in a best-of-seven series.

    The toughest part for the Raiders on Friday was the fact they started the game with three first period power plays and came away empty handed. They also had some momentum from an early hit offensive defenceman Max Martin dished out on Mooseheads centre Keith Getson.

    After the first two penalties were killed, the Mooseheads went ahead 1-0 when right-winger Raphael Lavoie centred a pass to centre Samuel Asselin fired home the go-ahead goal at the 10:46 of the opening frame. Raiders defenceman Zack Hayes was trying to check Lavoie but was accidentally picked on the play by referee Mario Maillet.
    The pick allowed Lavoie a clear lane to pass the puck to Asselin.

    Following the kill of the third Raiders power play, Asselin, who was a member of the Acadie-Bathurst Titan’s Memorial Cup winning team last season, sent a backdoor feed to linemate Xavier Parent, who tapped in a goal to give Halifax a 2-0 lead at the 18:44 mark of the opening frame.

    In the second, the Raiders got into penalty trouble including starting the frame with two delay of game penalties for clearing the puck over the glass.

    After killing off a third period, Prince Albert got on the boards when star overage centre Noah Gregor tipped home a point shot from Martin to cut the Mooseheads lead to 2-1.

Max Martin had an assist for the Raiders on Friday.

    Halifax regained momentum going on its fourth power play of the second period. Mooseheads defenceman Jake Ryczek one-timed home a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle on a beauty feed from left-winger Maxim Trepanier to give the host side a 3-1 edge.

    Trepanier picked up assists on all three of Halifax’s goals to that point in the contest.

    Late in the second, Raiders overage centre Dante Hannoun tried to tuck home a backhander into what appeared to be an open right side of the Halifax net, but he was robbed on a diving stick save from Mooseheads goalie Alexis Gravel.

    Halifax controlled played in the third holding a 15-4 edge in shots on goal, and centre Antoine Morand, who is an NHL Entry Draft selection of the Anaheim Ducks, rounded out the final score with an empty-net goal with 1:53 remaining in the frame.

    Ian Scott turned away 33-of-36 shots to take the setback in goal for the Raiders. Gravel stopped 23 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Mooseheads.

    The Raiders failed to score on four power-play chances, while the Mooseheads were 1-for-6 with the man advantage.

    The Memorial Cup continues Saturday as the QMJHL champion Huskies face the OHL champion Guelph Storm.

    The Raiders are off until Monday, when they face another daunting task taking on the Huskies (5 p.m. Saskatchewan time, Sportsnet).

    The Huskies topped the QMJHL regular season standings with a 59-8-0-1 record and were rated first in the final CHL Top 10 rankings.

Dante Hannoun was robbed on a late second period scoring chance.

    While the Huskies will be a tough foe, expect the Raiders to be better in that contest.

    The Prince Albert squad arrived in Halifax on Wednesday. When Monday’s game rolls around, the Raiders will have spent four full days in the Nova Scotia capital city, which should help them be fully adjusted to the three-hour time change.

    The Raiders will have had a couple of practices, and head coach Marc Habscheid and his coaching staff will have been able to scout the other three teams in the field over two games before the Monday contest with the Huskies rolls around.

    The Raiders might not be able to overcome the woes the WHL champion has incurred at the last 10 Memorial Cups, but they will have an optimal shot to overcome those woes.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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