Justice Christensen’s 50th career WHL goal couldn’t have come at a better time.
The hard-hitting Prince Albert Raider captain fired a wrist shot through a screen and past Regina Pats starter Taylor Tabashniuk with 1:34 left in the second period to break open a 2-2 tie and propel the Raiders to a 5-2 win at the Art Hauser Centre.
“It was kind of in the back of my head a little bit for a while now, so it was definitely nice to get it in there,” said Christensen, who also had an assist on Brandon Gorzynski’s empty net goal that ended all hopes of a Regina comeback. “(We) just keep rolling.”
The Raiders badly outshot the Pats most of the night, but struggled to pull more than one goal ahead. Jonah Sivertson opened the scoring for the home side midway through the first, but former Raider Dayce Derkatch knotted things up a little more than two minutes later.
When defenceman Daxon Rudolph gave the Raiders a 2-1 lead late in the first, the Pats responded with a goal of their own midway through the second. Captain Ephram McNutt shoveled in a loose puck that had stopped inches from the goal line after squeezing through Raider starter Michal Orsulak’s pads.
The Raiders outshot the Pats 33-11 over the first 40 minutes, but couldn’t pull ahead for good until Christensen’s late power play tally.
“Regina plays a tenacious game,” Raiders head coach Ryan McDonald said. “They’re hard on the hunt. They’re hard on the forecheck. They track well.
“We played fast on the yellows, (and) we continued to get pucks going north. They had a good stand at the blue and we continued to get pucks underneath, whether it was driving it with our feet or spotting it underneath and getting on our forecheck or rimming it in to get on our hunt. Guys did a great job of just continuing to invest.”
The Pats rallied in the third, outshooting the Raiders 12-11, but only had one great chance to tie it. That came in the first two minutes of the period when a dump-in took a strange bounce off the boards and rolled in front of an empty Raider net after Orsulak left the crease to play the puck.
The bounce forced the Czech netminder—and defenceman Linden Burrett—to dive headfirst back into the crease to prevent a goal. Pats centre Cohen Klassen got to the puck first, but the it took another pad hop, and Klassen’s shot ended up fluttering harmlessly over the net.
Almost exactly one minute later, Raiders forward Braeden Cootes grabbed a loose puck in the slot, and sifted a soft backhand over Tabashniuk’s shoulder to give Prince Albert the two goal cushion they sought all night.
“That was a nice goal,” Christensen said with a grin when asked about Cootes’ tally. “I was pumping his tires a little bit after that one. I liked it.”
While the Pats managed to generate more shots in the third they did the first two periods combined, they rarely threatened Orsulak. Gorzynski put the game to bed for good when he scored on an empty-net breakaway with 41 seconds left.
Despite the loss, Pats head coach Brad Herauf liked his team’s effort.
“I think that they (Prince Albert) missed a couple good Grade A chances to keep the game a little closer than maybe it was, but I liked our compete tonight,” Herauf said. “We battled with them.
“We weren’t just being complacent watching them play with the puck. We actually tried to force them into some mistakes, so we weren’t on our heels. We were going at them. It’s going to be tough against PA, but I liked that we weren’t playing scared.”
The win puts the Raiders seven points ahead of the Medicine Hat Tigers for first in the WHL’s Eastern Conference. The Raiders have played one more game than the Tigers, who were idle on Tuesday.
Despite the loss, Regina still only remains three points out of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. They’re chasing the Red Deer Rebels, who lost 6-3 to Everett on Tuesday.
The Pats have two games in hand on the Rebels, meaning Tuesday’s game could be teaser for a possible first round playoff match-up. However, Herauf said that didn’t factor into Tuesday night’s contest.
“For us at this point we’re not really worried about that,” he said. “We’re just trying to take it game by game and just trying to collect enough points to get in the playoffs.”
News and Notes:
• Raider winger Alisher Sarkenov limped off the ice in the third period after taking a slap shot off the ankle, but stayed in the game.
• The Raiders had a gloriously chance to take the lead just before Christensen’s goal when Gorzynski found himself facing a wide-open Pats net with the puck on his stick. Regina defenceman Reese Hamilton saved the day by deflecting the shot wide, preserving the 2-2 tie for another 1:04.
• Orsulak stopped 21 shots on the night. Tabashniuk finished with 39 saves in the Pats goal.
• The Raiders went 1/3 on the power play. The Pats were 0/2.
• The announced attendance was 2,484.
• The Raiders have now won five of six meetings with the Pats this season. The two teams meet again in Regina on March 14, and in Prince Albert on March 17.
