What a thrilling comeback!

Raiders rally past Blades 5-4 after tiebreaking shootout

The Raiders celebrate their 5-4 (SO) win on Friday night.

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – Like a textbook match by The Undertaker in WWE, the Prince Albert Raiders came back seemingly from the dead to pull out victory.

On Friday night at the Art Hauser Centre, the Raiders, who were rebranded as the Cobra Chickens for a one night promotion, appeared to be dead in the water taking on their archrivals in the WHL leading Saskatoon Blades. After 40 minutes of play, the Blades were up 4-2 and held a 28-11 edge in shots on goal.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the Raiders found a new higher gear in their skating legs. Raiders feisty 18-year-old centre Aiden Oiring scored at the 6:31 mark of the third period to cut the Blades to 4-3.

Aiden Oiring scored the Raiders third goal on Friday.

Working on the power play and with netminder Max Hildebrand pulled for an extra attacker, Raiders 20-year-old centre Turner McMillen popped home the equalizer during a net scramble at the left side of the Saskatoon goal with 40.3 seconds remaining in the third to force a 4-4 tie and overtime.

Following a scoreless overtime period, the two sides went to a tiebreaking shootout. In the three round shootout, star import right-winger Egor Sidorov scored for the Blades. Star 20-year-old left-winger Sloan Stanick and 19-year-old import left-winger Krzysztof Macias tallied for the Raiders to give the host a 2-1 win in the tiebreaking session and a 5-4 victory in the WHL regular season contest.

After stopping Blades star left-winger Brandon Lisowsky on the final attempt in the shootout, Hildebrand did a sort of a chicken dance as he was mobbed by his teammates. The 2,709 Raiders faithful in attendance at the 2,580 seat building soaking in the playing of “Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon” by The Guess Who as the host side brought an end to a five-game losing streak.

Turner McMillen (#27) celebrates scoring the equalizer for P.A.

“It is a big character win,” said Raiders rookie centre Oli Chenier, who turned 17-years-old on Friday. “We showed that we really can compete with anyone in this league tonight.

“If we play a full 60 (minutes), I don’t think a lot of teams have a chance with us. It is just up to us to show up prepared for every game.”

The Raiders opened the game’s scoring tallying on the power play just 2:41 into the opening frame. Raiders winger Brayden Dube had the puck on the left wing boards and centred a pass to Chenier in front of the Saskatoon net. Chenier tipped the puck home to give the host side a 1-0 edge.

Chenier was pumped to score on his birthday.

Max Hildebrand (#30) covers a loose puck during a net scramble.

“I couldn’t ask for a better gift right there,” said Chenier. “That was really good to start off the night like that.”

The Blades evened things up at 1-1 scoring a power play of their own with 8:04 remaining in the first, when veteran centre Tyler Parr snuck in a shot from the front of the Prince Albert net.

With 3:36 remaining in the opening frame, Stanick circled from the right boards to the front of the Saskatoon goal and blew home his 20^th tally of the season to give the hosts a 2-1 edge.

The Blades controlled a lot of the zone play in the opening 20 minutes outshooting the Raiders 12-5 in the frame.

Brandon Lisowsky scored twice for the Blades on Friday.

At the 4:08 mark of the second, the Blades evened the score at 2-2 when Lisowsky slipped home his 27^th goal of the season from a bad angle from the left side of the Prince Albert net.

The Blades proceeded to go ahead for the first time on the night when star 20-year-old left-winger Easton Armstrong snapped home his 23^rd goal of the tally of the season from the front of the Prince Albert net to give the visitors a 3-2 edge. With 5:37 remaining in the second, Lisowsky scored on the power play to account for their second tally of the contest to push the Blades edge out to 4-2.

Raiders head coach Jeff Truitt said the players said to themselves in the second intermission they weren’t going to give up. They made a renewed commitment to get back into the contest.

Easton Armstrong scored the Blades third goal on Friday.

“It is a character builder,” said Truitt. “It is a lesson, and our guys just seemed to rise to the occasion at times against a very good team.”

In the third period, the Raiders outshot the Blades 14-11 on their way to getting goals for Oiring and McMillen to pull even on the scoreboard. McMillen, who is from Cairevale, Sask., played two seasons for the Prince Albert Mintos Under-18 AAA team from 2018 to 2020 before embarking on his junior career.

After playing a little over four seasons with the Kelowna Rockets, McMillen was released this past October, and he moved to the junior A ranks joining the SJHL’s Estevan Bruins. The Raiders added McMillen to their roster on January 8.

McMillen said he remembered everything with his equalizer as just being a blur. He remembered hearing the crowd at the Art Hauser Centre sounding really loud and was pumped to help the Raiders get the comeback win.

Oli Chenier scored the Raiders first goal on Friday.

“I love it here,” said McMillen, who had an assist to go with his goal. “I love the city.

“It was definitely one of my favourite rinks. I can say that again. The fans are amazing.”

Hildebrand stopped 41 shots in goal for the Raiders over 65 minutes and two-of-three shooters he faced in the shootout. The Raiders improved to 20-22-1-3 with the win and remained tied with the Calgary Hitmen (19-18-5-1) for eighth place in the WHL’s Eastern Conference with 44 standings points. The Hitmen have three games in hand on the Raiders.

Evan Gardner turned away 21 shots in net for the Blades over 65 minutes and turned back one-of-three shooters in the shootout. The Blades, who are rated second in the CHL Top 10 Rankings, continued to top the WHL’s overall standings as their record moved to 31-9-2-3.

Raiders mascot PIMS hangs with the Art Hauser Centre faithful.

The two sides go at it again on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.

Overall, Truitt was proud of how his players rallied to pull out the come-from-behind victory.

“It was no easy task,” said Truitt. “It was a bit of an emotional game.

“The emotions were up 2-1 and were down 4-2 and comeback to 4-4. To do it against this team, you respect your opponent there is no doubt. There is a reason why they are ranked number one.

The Raiders salute their fans after Friday’s win.

“They’ve got a deep, deep lineup and good players all over the place. I have to give our guys a lot of credit here tonight for coming back the way they did.”

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