Skid for WHL champs grows to 13 games
at CHL title tourney
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| Sean Montgomery had a goal for the Raiders on Tuesday. |
On Tuesday, the Raiders closed play at the Memorial Cup tournament falling 5-2 to the OHL champion Guelph Storm before 9,248 spectators at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, N.S.
With the loss the Raiders were eliminated from the
tournament finishing last in the round robin standings at 0-3.
The same fate was suffered by the Brandon Wheat Kings in
2016, the Seattle Thunderbirds in 2017 and the Swift Current Broncos a year
ago. Like the Raiders this year, all of those clubs felt an extreme high
winning the WHL title and capturing the Ed Chynoweth Cup.
The league championship victory was followed by an epilogue
of going winless in the CHL championship tournament creating a bit of flat
feeling at the end of the campaign.
In total, the club that enters the Memorial Cup as the WHL
champion has lost 13 straight games at the CHL championship tourney. 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.
Since 2015, WHL clubs have earned wins at the Memorial Cup,
when they enter the event as the host team. The Red Deer Rebels went 2-2 as
tournament host in 2016, and the Regina Pats were 3-2 as the hosts of last year’s
100th edition of the event.
The Pats made the Memorial Cup title game a year ago falling 3-0 to the QMJHL champion Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
The Pats made the Memorial Cup title game a year ago falling 3-0 to the QMJHL champion Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
Still when looking at the fate of the entrant that is the
WHL champion since 2015, one wonders how long the losing streak for that
entrant will go at the Memorial Cup.
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| Noah Gregor was one of the Raiders top players this season. |
Clubs from the OHL won the Memorial Cup five times over that
span of time, while clubs from the QMJHL have taken the title four times. When
the title game of this year’s tournament is played on Sunday, the WHL as a
league will have won one of the last 11 Memorial Cup championships.
Now that the Raiders have been eliminated at this year’s event,
the WHL as a league has matched its longest drought of not winning major junior
hockey’s biggest prize spanning five seasons. The WHL failed the win the
Memorial Cup over a five year span from 2009 to 2013.
Clubs from the WHL first became eligible to play for the
Memorial Cup in the 1970-71 campaign.
Due to the WHL’s lack of success at the Memorial Cup, the
notion that teams coming out of the OHL and QMJHL are better than those in the
WHL just keeps growing.
Honestly, how can that notion not grow?
Honestly, how can that notion not grow?
While the WHL has been in a funk at the Memorial Cup, hopes
were high the Raiders might break that funk, even when they entered Tuesday’s
game against the Storm.
Fans of the Prince Albert club saw a core group of players
grow together in overager Sean Montgomery, who is a career Raider, captain
Brayden Pachal, Zack Hayes, Max Martin, Spencer Moe, Cole Fonstad, Parker Kelly
and star netminder Ian Scott from a 2016-17 campaign that saw the then young
squad take their lumps posting a 21-44-5-2 record.
In a magical 2018-19 campaign, the Raiders posted the WHL’s
best regular season mark at 54-10-2-2 and were also rated second in the final
CHL Top 10 rankings.
They captured the WHL title in dramatic fashion when standout
overage centre Dante Hannoun scored in overtime in Game 7 of the league final to
beat the Vancouver Giants 3-2 before a sellout crowd of 3,289 spectators at the
2,580 seat Art Hauser Centre.
With all that had happened to the Raiders, you thought fate wouldn’t let them exit the Memorial Cup at 0-3.
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| Dante Hannoun scored for the Raiders on Tuesday. |
With all that had happened to the Raiders, you thought fate wouldn’t let them exit the Memorial Cup at 0-3.
The Storm
finished eighth overall in the OHL’s regular season with a 40-18-6-4 mark
before winning their league championship. If the Raiders were going to pick up
a win at the Memorial Cup, this might very well be the spot.
The Storm opened the scoring on Tuesday at the 9:42 mark of
the first period. After catching the Raiders on a bad line change, the Storm
entered the Prince Albert zone on a two-on-one break.
Storm centre Nick Suzuki made a sweet pass over to pinching defenceman Fedor Gordeev, and Gordeev converted the setup for his first goal of the tournament.
Storm centre Nick Suzuki made a sweet pass over to pinching defenceman Fedor Gordeev, and Gordeev converted the setup for his first goal of the tournament.
The Raiders pulled even at 1-1 scoring their first
power-play goal of the tournament, when Montgomery tipped home a point shot by
star overage centre Noah Gregor at the 11:32 mark of the first.
The goals kept coming in the opening frame. With 4:42
remaining in the first, Storm captain Isaac Ratcliffe took a pass from linemate
MacKenzie Entwistle, cut across the front of the Prince Albert net and tucked
home a backhand shot between the legs of Scott to give Guelph a 2-1 lead.
With 43.1 seconds remaining in the first, the Raiders pulled even at 2-2, when Hannoun tipped home a point shot from Pachal.
With 43.1 seconds remaining in the first, the Raiders pulled even at 2-2, when Hannoun tipped home a point shot from Pachal.
From that exciting opening 20 minutes, Guelph assumed
control of the game.
The Storm surged ahead 4-2 scoring twice early in the second
period.
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| Brayden Pachal gave the Raiders great leadership. |
The Storm struck again on a centre ice turnover. Storm defenceman Sean Durzi picked off a Raiders pass at the red-line and quickly transitioned the puck up ice.
Durzi sent the puck to Ratcliffe on the left wing, and
Ratcliffe slipped a beauty pass to get Suzuki in alone on the Prince Albert
goal. Suzuki put a shot to the right corner of the Raiders net at the 5:02 mark
of the second to put the Storm up 4-2.
At the 6:42 mark of the third, Suzuki had the puck behind
the icing line in the Prince Albert zone and banked it off the back of Scott
into the Raiders goal to round out the scoring in the contest.
Scott turned away 20 shots to take the setback in goal for
the Raiders. Anthony Popovich stopped 19 shots to pick up the win in goal for
the Storm.
The Raiders weren’t able to get any real traction to mount a
comeback over the second and third frames, as the Storm had an advantage in
puck possession. Guelph also had a 41-18 edge in faceoffs won forcing Prince
Albert to chase to get possession of the puck.
To make the night even more heartbreaking for the Raiders,
star right-winger Brett Leason was stopped twice on one breakaway opportunity
late in the third.
The Storm finished round robin play with a 2-1 record.
Guelph is waiting on the result of Wednesday’s final round robin game between
the QMJHL champion Rouyn-Noranda Huskies (1-1) and host Halifax Mooseheads
(2-0) to see if it will play in Friday’s semifinal or Sunday’s title game.
For the Raiders, they had a spectacular season. Since
entering the major junior ranks at the start of the 1982-83 campaign, the
Raiders captured the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy for finishing first in the
overall league standings for the second time in team history.
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| Parker Kelly played the power forward role to perfection in 2018-19. |
The last time the Raiders finished first in the WHL regular
season and won the league title was back in 1984-85, when they won their only
Memorial Cup title.
For a team that went through a 13-year stretch from 2006 to
2018 of missing the playoffs seven times and being eliminated in the first
round six times, the Raiders have a lot to be proud of. They returned to elite
status in the major junior ranks.
Unfortunately for the WHL, the losing streak by its league
champion at the Memorial Cup tournament remains.
It will be the elephant in the room the circuit has to deal
with until a WHL champion finally wins to put an end to the skid.
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to stankssports@gmail.com.
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