By Darren Steinke
Special to the Herald
Landon Kosior is in the post-season groove.
The graduate of the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders is looking forward to his second go in the playoffs in the U Sports ranks skating on the blue-line of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Men’s Hockey Team. The Huskies topped the Canada West Conference regular season standings with a 23-5 record and will host the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in a best-of-three conference semifinal series.
Games 1 and 2 will go Friday and Saturday respectively with a 7 p.m. start time on each night at Merlis Belsher Place. If necessary, a series-deciding Game 3 is set for Sunday at 6 p.m. at Merlis. The Thunderbirds finished fourth overall in Canada West with an 18-8-0-2 mark.
“Coming into the year just with the guys that we were bringing back, we kind of knew that we should have a pretty good team,” said Kosior, who stands 6-feet and weighs 190 pounds. “I think it has gone just as we had hoped.
“That being said, the playoffs are coming up. That is the main goal of the year is to win a championship, so the real season starts now.”
Kosior had a great regular season in 2024-25 topping the Huskies in defenceman scoring and was third in team scoring with 25 points coming off four goals and 21 assists to go with a plus-eight rating in the plus-minus department. On Tuesday, he was named a second team Canada West all-star.
While accolades for the regular season were nice, Kosior has been looking forward to playing in the U Sports post-season, since the Huskies were eliminated from last year’s Canada West playoffs. In February of 2024, the Huskies hosted their “forever rivals” the University of Alberta Golden Bears in a best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series at Merlis. That set went to a series-deciding Game 3 that the Golden Bears claimed 5-4 in overtime.
Kosior said it took him and his teammates a long time to get over that series loss. He also found it an adjustment taking part in a best-of-three post-season series after being used to best-of-seven series that are played in the WHL Playoffs.
“It is different,” said Kosior, who has three assists in the 2024 series loss to the Golden Bears. “Each game just means more, because there is not enough time to come back when you’re down like there is in a seven-game series.
“I’d just say each game carries a greater weight.”
After graduating from the Raiders following the conclusion of the 2022-23 WHL campaign, Kosior elected to first turn professional playing in the ECHL with the Iowa Heartlanders in Coralville, Iowa. In 19 games with the Heartlanders, Kosior recorded two goals, 11 assists and a plus-one rating.
While he was putting up good statistics, Kosior didn’t feel like he was getting a serious look to go to the AHL and elected to leave the Heartlanders and join the Huskies when they began play after the U Sports Christmas break in January of 2024. In the 11 regular season games Kosior played with the Huskies in the second half of the 2023-24 campaign, he recorded four goals, five assists and a plus-five rating. He was named to the Canada West all-rookie team.
Ultimately, Kosior said it was an easy choice to join the Huskies.
“Just looking at the history of the program, it is a really storied program, and they’ve had a lot of success winning Canada West Championships,” said Kosior, who played four seasons for the Raiders from 2019 to 2023. “They’ve put together good teams and advanced guys on to pro, which was obviously a goal of mine as well coming here.
“I want to be able to go pro after I came here. Then just the facilities here are amazing. I’d say they are the top in all of Canadian university.
“It is just a beautiful area. I’m from Regina, so being close to home was another nice thing too. I had a visit with (Huskies head coach) Brandin (Cote) here, and it was really good.”
Cote said Kosior has been a big addition for the Huskies. The bench boss notes his all-star rearguard has been an outstanding two-way player.
With that noted, Cote said the Huskies power play took a big leap forward with Kosior quarterbacking the back end. During the 2024-25 regular season, the Huskies had the top power play in Canada West hitting at a 31.1 per cent success rate. The Huskies also had the top penalty killing unit in Canada West with an 89.4 per cent success rate.
When Kosior started skating with the Huskies who have a large number of standout experienced former WHL players, Cote said the skilled blue-liner fit right in.
“I think he handled it really well,” said Cote, who served as a Raiders assistant coach in 2016-17. “It was actually really seamless.
“There are guys that come in, and they don’t really understand what the level is. They think it is going to be easier than junior sometimes. I think the benefit to him too was he was able to go play against pro guys and play pro hockey.
“I really believe that our level right now, especially when the top teams are playing, it is just as good as the ECHL. For him to come back, the pace, the size, the strength of the guys and the speed of the game was very similar. I think that really helped with his adjustment versus a guy coming from major junior and sort of wading himself into it.”
Cote believes Kosior will play a big part in the Huskies potentially having a lengthy post-season run.
“I’m expecting big things,” said Cote. “Not putting pressure on him or anything, but he is going to be a big part of our success here.
“Last year against U of A, he elevated his game, and we came real close. We had a really good team last year. We’re more mature as a group this year, and we can go deeper.
“We’ve got more skill. We’re ready to take another step, and again, he is going to be a big part of that.”
Kosior enjoyed his time in Prince Albert and cherishes the memories he made with the Raiders. He is pleased he found another great bunch to be around in the Huskies.
As the Huskies alumni are very involved with the team, Kosior knows the Huskies have had a history where they have won the Canada West title on a number of occasions and failed to win U Sports nationals. The Huskies only U Sports national title came in the 1982-83 campaign, where U of S won both the Canada West and U Sports titles.
Kosior said this year’s team would like to be the ones that go all the way.
“We’ve heard about how the Huskies have struggled to win nationals after winning Canada West,” said Kosior, who is in the U of S’s business school majoring in accounting. “We’ve heard from alumni who have been on that team who won (nationals) and just how much it meant and how exciting it is.
“I think just taking all of those experiences and using it this year we all have the same end goal which is to win a national championship. We’ve got to focus on the near future, which is winning our first playoff series and then winning the Canada West championship before we can do that. Hopefully at the end of the year, we’ll be national champions.”
Darren Steinke is a Saskatoon-based freelance sportswriter and photographer. He blogs frequently at stankssermon.blogspot.com.
