By Darren Steinke
Stanks On Sports
Landon Kosior and a number of other Prince Albert connections have put the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Men’s Hockey Team on quest to capture Canada West Conference and U Sports national titles.
Last Saturday at Merlis Belsher Place on the University of Saskatchewan campus, the Huskies concluded their regular season downing the University of Manitoba Bisons 4-2. That win allowed the Huskies to improve to 23-5 and lock up first place in Canada West and home ice advantage through the conference playoffs. The last time the Huskies pulled that feat off was back in the 2018-19 campaign under now retired legendary head coach Dave Adolph.
U of S is also rated second in the U Sports Top 10 rankings.
The Huskies roster includes Kosior and Keaton Sorensen, who are grads of the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders. U of S’s roster includes Rhett Rhinehart, who started his WHL career with the Raiders, and Ty Prefontaine, who played the first three games of his WHL career with the Raiders before playing most of his major junior career with the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Josh Pillar and Ashton Ferster are grads from the Prince Albert Mintos under-18 AAA team who are skating with the Raiders. Prince Albert product Ethan Regnier came up through Prince Albert’s minor hockey system and found his way to the Huskies after playing in the WHL with Swift Current Broncos and Everett Silvertips.
Huskies third-year head coach Brandin Cote served as a Raiders assistant coach way back in the 2016-17 season.
Kosior has arguably had the biggest impact on the Huskies. He moved from being a high level offensive-defenceman with the Raiders to continuing that same role at U of S.
During his final two WHL campaigns from 2021 to 2023, Kosior played in 128 regular season games recording 35 goals and 73 assists for 108 points. After playing the first half of the 2023-24 season with the Iowa Heartliners, Kosior joined the Huskies for the second half of that campaign and posted four goals and five assists in his first 11 regular season contests with the U of S.
In the Huskies 2024-25 U Sports regular season that just wrapped up, Kosior appeared in all of the team’s 28 games recording four goals and 21 assists to go with a plus-eight rating in the plus-minus department. The 22-year-old was Huskies third overall leading scorer and their top scoring blue-liner.
Sorensen is in his second full season with the Huskies. In the 2024-25 regular season, the 23-year-old forward appeared in 18 games posting five goals, six assists and a plus-11 rating. He had a big farewell season with the Raiders in 2022-23 posting 25 goals, 28 assists and a plus-five rating in 64 games.
Pillar, who had a spectacular final season with the Mintos in 2017-18, was plagued by health battles finishing up his WHL career with the Kamloops Blazers and Saskatoon Blades. In his second season with the Huskies, the 23-year-old played in all 28 regular season games with the U of S side this past regular season, which had to be seen as a huge accomplishment.
He recorded seven goals, 17 assists and a plus-seven rating. Pillar was the fourth leading scorer for the Huskies.
Rhinehart, who played 33 games with the Raiders from 2016 to 2018, appeared in 22 regular season games for the Huskies in this past regular season picking up 11 assists. Prefontaine, who played three games for the Raiders in 2015-16, suited up in 24 regular season games for the Huskies recording five goals, three assists and a plus-19 rating.
Ferster, who finished up with the Mintos in 2019-20, appeared in 21 games with the Huskies as a U Sports rookie putting up two goals, nine assists and a plus-14 rating. Regnier came to the Huskies after spending two seasons from 2021 to 2023 with the Mount Royal University Cougars. With the Huskies in 2024-25, he skated in 21 games posting two goals, nine assists and a plus-five rating.
Cote played his entire WHL career from 1996 to 2002 as a centre with the Spokane Chiefs. He turned to coaching once his playing days were wrapped up. In 2016-17, he got to work with a number of young Raiders players who would make up the core of the club’s WHL championship team in 2018-19.
After working as an assistant coach with the Broncos, Cote joined the Huskies as an associate coach on the bench with Mike Babcock in the 2021-22 campaign, when Babcock worked his one season as Huskies head coach. Cote, who is now 43-years-old, took over the head coaching duties the next season.
Heading into the 2025 post-season, the Huskies are looking to make the Canada West Championship Series for the first since last winning the conference title in the 2019-2020 campaign in what was Adolph’s final season as head coach. They have a bye to a best-of-three Canada West semifinal series to be played February 28 to March 2 at Merlis Belsher Place.
The Huskies will face the winner of a best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series between the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds (18-8-0-2) and the MacEwan University Griffins (10-15-2-1) to be played this Friday to Sunday in Vancouver.
During Huskies hockey playoff runs and especially if they host the conference final, Merlis Belsher Place is usually jam packed. With the Prince Albert connections on the Huskies, there will be a few folks in “Hockey Town North” keeping tabs on the Huskies run.
Raiders Christensen hits big milestone with 20th goal
Justice Christensen has gone to a place no Raiders defenceman has gone for some time.
On Monday, the Raiders 19-year-old captain recorded two goals, two assists and a plus-four rating in an 8-2 victory over the Warriors in Moose Jaw. Christensen’s second tally of the night also marked the first time he has scored 20 goals in one WHL regular season. Entering play on Tuesday, Christensen sat tied with Bryce Pickford of the Medicine Hat Tigers for most goals by a defenceman this season at 20.
Christensen also became the first Raiders defenceman to score 20-or-more goals in one season since Jesse Lees netted 23 goals in the 2015-16 campaign. Lees also recorded 35 assists to finish with 58 points to go with a plus-nine rating in 71 regular season contests.
To show how hard it is for a defenceman to record 20 or more goals in one regular season, two of the best to ever put up points in the back end with the Raiders in Manny Viveiros and Josh Morrissey each only hit the 20-goal plateau once.
In his final campaign with the Raiders in 1985-86, Viveiros recorded 22 goals and 70 assists for 92 points playing 57 regular season contests for the Raiders. Viveiros, who was the Raiders captain that season, missed time with the Raiders playing for Canada’s world junior team and suiting up for four games with the NHL’s Minnesota North Stars that season.
As far as the Raiders history in the WHL goes, Viveiros is the club’s third all-time leading scorer recording 321 points on 60 goals and 261 assists playing 251 regular season games from 1982 to 1986.
As captain of the Raiders in the 2013-14 campaign, Morrissey recorded 28 goals, 45 assists and a plus-six rating in 59 regular season games with the club. Morrissey missed time due to playing for Canada at world juniors that season.
For Christensen, the most impressive part of his 20-goal campaign is that 19 of his tallies have come even strength. Entering play on Tuesday, Christensen also had 20 assists and a plus-19 rating appearing in all of the Raiders 53 games to that point in time.
From the back end, Christensen is having a rare special individual season for the Raiders, and he still has lots of time to keep building on his goal total.
Darren Steinke is a Saskatoon-based freelance sportswriter and photographer with more than 20 years of experience covering the WHL. He blogs frequently at stankssermon.blogspot.com.
