Dave Leaderhouse
Special to the Herald
For the second time this week, and fourth time in the last month, the Prince Albert Raiders have feasted on the Moose Jaw Warriors and as a result are on the cusp of claiming their second straight Western Hockey League East Division title.
“It goes in cycles,” laughed Raiders’ head coach Ryan McDonald when asked if he has had his fill of the Warriors. “After Christmas it seemed like all we saw was Swift Current; now we have seen these guys a lot. Our guys are just really focused on the process and having good habits for the next game.”
A meltdown of epic proportions is the only thing preventing the Raiders from laying claim to the divisional title as the Brandon Wheat Kings would have to win out while Prince Albert would have to drop their final 12 games in order for them to not defend their East Division championship.
On Friday at the Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, the Raiders got goals from six different players in skating to a 6-2 decision over the Warriors.
“The real luxury of our group is that almost every night we score by committee,” noted McDonald. “We possessed the puck underneath and played in the O-zone really well. We got pucks north quickly.”
Maddix McCagherty and Brandon Gorzynski staked the Raiders to a 2-0 first-period advantage when they potted goals in the final two minutes of the opening session while Ben Harvey notched the game winner just 50 seconds after Riley Thorpe had cut the Raider lead in half early in the middle frame.
Alisher Sarkenov and Braeden Cootes sandwiched a shorthanded effort from Moose Jaw’s Ethan Semeniuk in the third period before Raider rookie Hubert Clarke tallied his first-ever WHL goal with just 14 seconds left on the clock to round out the scoring.
Prince Albert fired 49 shots at Warrior netminder Kyle Jones while Steele Bass was tested 25 times in the Raider net.
The Raiders will look to officially claim the East Division title on Saturday when they begin a four-game homestand by hosting the Swift Current Broncos at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre. It will be the eighth and final meeting of the season between the provincial rivals with Prince Albert having won all seven previous tilts and in the process having outscored the Broncos by a 43-7 margin.
GAME NOTES – The Raiders were without import defenceman Matyas Man for a third straight game as he serves a four-game suspension for an incident in Brandon last week. Man will complete his sentence on Saturday…Also out of the line-up was overage forward Brayden Dube who is nursing an injury…In the line-up, however, were Daxon Rudolph, Jonah Sivertson and Michal Orsulak as the trio had a busy week flying out to Langley, B.C., and back for the inaugural WHL Prospects Game. Rudolph netted the overtime winner for the Eastern Conference and was named the top performer of the game. Orsulak stopped all 16 shots he faced in 30 minutes of action while Sivertson had three shots on net and was solid in all facets of the game…McCagherty’s first-period goal gives him 99 points in his career, which started in Swift Current back in the 2021-22 campaign…The Broncos aren’t the only team the Raiders have mastered this year as Friday’s win improved Prince Albert’s record against the Warriors to 5-0. They have one more regular-season meeting next month, but there is a real good chance that the two foes could be first-round opponents in the playoffs as Moose Jaw is just one point behind the Red Deer Rebels for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. In order for that to happen, Prince Albert would have to maintain its current grip on the No. 1 seed and after Friday’s action the magic number to do that is 10 meaning any combination of Raider wins and Medicine Hat Tigers losses equalling that number will give Prince Albert home-ice advantage throughout the conference playoffs… A surprising 6-1 home-ice loss by the Everett Silvertips to the Wenatchee Wild on Friday also kept first place overall in the league standings in the Raiders’ sights as Prince Albert now trails the Silvertips by just two points.
