Christensen’s Gordie Howe hat trick powers Raiders over Blades

Prince Albert locks up first in WHL’s Eastern Conference  

Justice Christensen celebrates his second goal of Friday’s game.

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – Justice Christensen got the party started for the Prince Albert Raiders.

The 20-year-old captain delivered a signature game to give his Raiders a first place in the WHL’s Eastern Conference. He had a pair of goals, an assist, a plus-three rating in the plus-minus department and engaged in one fight to power Prince Albert to a 4-0 victory over their archrivals the Saskatoon Blades. The victory came before an elated standing room home crowd of 3,076 spectators at the 2,580 seat storied and historic Art Hauser Centre.

With the win, the Raiders improve to 51-10-5-1. While the defending WHL champion Medicine Hat Tigers improved to 49-10-5-3 with a 9-3 victory over the Rebels in Red Deer on Friday to remain two standings points back of the Raiders, Medicine Hat loses out on the standings tiebreaker. Both teams have one game remaining in their respective regular season schedules, and the Raiders are guaranteed to finish with more wins than the Tigers to take the standings tiebreaker.

Justice Christensen (#7) fights Tyler Parr (#20).

The Raiders will also finish second overall in the WHL behind the Everett Silvertips (56-8-2-1), while the Tigers will place third overall. Everett is rated first in the CHL’s Top 10 Rankings, Prince Albert is fourth in those ratings and Medicine Hat is rated fifth.

Friday’s tilt between the Raiders and Blades got off with some good fireworks just 38 seconds into the contest with a fight between captains of the two sides in Christensen and Tyler Parr of the Blades. The players went at it for about a solid 30 seconds throwing a bunch of punches for arguably one of best fights of the 2025-26 WHL campaign.

The Raiders opened the game’s scoring on a beauty power-play goal at the 7:57 mark of the first period. Raiders star defenceman Daxon Rudolph had the puck in his own zone and hit star centre Braeden Cootes with a slick stretch pass right before the Saskatoon blue-line.

Justice Christensen had a Gordie Howe hat trick on Friday.

Cootes burst into the Saskatoon zone and beat Blades netminder Taye Timmerman mid-height to the glove side to give the hosts a 1-0 edge.

With 5:44 remaining in the first, the Raiders pushed their edge to 2-0 on a goal from sophomore right-winger Riley Boychuk. Boychuk tipped home a puck in front of the Saskatoon net that came from a point shot taken by Raiders standout left-winger Maddix McCagherty.

Christensen would complete the Gordie Howe hat trick with 6:24 remaining in the second frame firing home a “juice bomb” point shot for his 17^th goal of the season. That tally pushed the Raiders advantage to 3-0.

Daxon Rudolph had a pair of assists for the Raiders on Friday.

At the 5:22 mark of the third, Christensen fired home his second “juice bomb” shot of the contest with this one coming from midrange to make Prince Albert’s lead sit at 4-0. The marker was Christensen’s 18^th goal of the campaign.

Blades starting netminder Taye Timmerman got dinged up on the Raiders fourth goal. The associate player call up was pulled after turning away 26-of-30 shots sent his way to take the setback in net for Saskatoon. Timmerman, who turned 19-years-old in late February, had been playing in the junior A ranks with the Warman Wolverines of the SJHL and had been making his second WHL regular season start on Friday.

The faithful at the Art Hauser Centre cheer on the Raiders.

Blades star netminder Evan Gardner stopped all five shots he faced playing the rest of the way in relief.

Michal Orsulak stopped all 16 shots he faced to pick up the shutout win in goal for the Raiders. The shutout was the fourth of the season for the rookie Czech import start netminder.

Rudolph finished with two assists and a plus-three rating in the plus-minus department. Cootes and Boychuk each had an assist to go with their goals, and both had a plus-one rating.

Michal Orsulak made 16 saves to pick up the shutout win.

The Blades fell to 34-26-5-2 with the loss and are locked into finishing sixth overall in the Eastern Conference. They will face the 44-18-3-2 Edmonton Oil Kings, who finished third overall in the Eastern Conference, in a best-of-seven first round series in the WHL Playoffs.

The Raiders could still potentially face either the Regina Pats (25-33-7-2), the Red Deer Rebels (26-35-4-2) or the Moose Jaw Warriors (25-35-5-2) in the first round of WHL Playoffs. The Pats, Rebels and Warriors all finish their respective regular season schedules on Saturday.

The Raiders and Blades go at it again on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon to close out their respective regular season schedules. After that clash, the focus turns to the WHL post-season.

The Raiders salute their fans after their win on Friday night.

As Raiders fans have known for some time, Christensen has been an outstanding leader for the team. As he is playing out his final season of WHL eligibility, you can expect Christensen will do whatever he can in his power to help his squad conclude the 2025-26 campaign in a blaze of glory.

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