The Prince Albert Raiders rose up and passed the test of the Medicine Hat Tigers, and they will now face a new stiff test in the Everett Silvertips in the WHL final.
The Raiders and Silvertips open the best-of-seven WHL Championship Series with Games 1 and 2 set for Friday and Saturday respectively at the Angel of the Winds Arena. The series will switch back to the Art Hauser Centre for Game 3 on Tuesday, May 12. The start time for all games of the series will depend on the TSN broadcast schedule and could change the longer the series goes.
When it comes to the WHL final, the Raiders have made two trips to the league championships series in their history coming up with title wins in 1985 and 2019. Prince Albert went on to win the Memorial Cup as CHL champions in 1985.
The Silvertips have gone to the league final twice in their history. They got there as an expansion team in 2004 and again in 2018 and weren’t able to come up with a WHL title on either occasion.
For the Raiders, they will be helped by the fact they made it to the WHL final after eliminating the defending WHL champion Medicine Hat Tigers in six games in the WHL Eastern Conference Championship Series. While the Tigers were battling a flu bug for the entire series, they showed a heart of a champion, including a never give up battle, when the Raiders closed out the series with a 7-6 victory in Game 6 at Co-op Place in Medicine Hat this past Sunday.
In that series, the Raiders raised their game against a foe that finished second in the Eastern Conference, captured the Central Division title and finished third overall in the WHL with a 50-10-5-3 mark. The Tigers were rated fifth in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings.
Raiders star defenceman Daxon Rudolph had an outstanding series recording four goals and seven assists to go with a plus-one rating in the plus-minus department. If there was a series MVP award, he likely would have received it, but he was named the WHL’s player of the week on Monday. Rudolph’s big series allowed him to vault to the top of the WHL’s post-season scoring race with 23 points coming off nine goals and 14 assists to go with a plus-10 rating.
Another thing that was a big factor in helping the Raiders power past the Tigers was the play of their regular quartet at centre in Aiden Oiring, Braeden Cootes, Max Heise and Evan Smith. You really got an idea of how well they can play at both ends of the ice.
There were lots of times Tigers players were bewildered when they had the puck poked away, stolen or a play broken up when Medicine Hat was on offence in the Raiders zone. It felt like there were times Oiring, Cootes, Heise and Smith were sitting in on the Tigers team meeting and knew exactly what Medicine Hat wanted to do on offence and where the puck was going to go.
During the series, the Raiders also took care of business in the faceoff circle holding a 219-173 advantage over the Tigers in draws won. Prince Albert won the faceoff battle in four of the six games in the set.
I also think some of the fans experienced some growth in the series. After the Tigers 5-0 victory in Game 2 of the series at the Hauser where the Tigers Christian players did their prayer circle in their own end as Raiders defencemen Matyas Man and Linden Burrett took a knee on their team logos at centre ice, the online fan reaction from both teams got out of hand.
I know the comments pushed towards me by the algorithms from Facebook and Instagram from fan pages I don’t follow and folks I don’t follow were toxic and over the line. It went way beyond what was normal fan reaction for a post-game.
With that said, the majority of the people that follow the Raiders and Tigers are good people and the over the line items that came on social media were from a minority. Interacting with some of the good fans throughout the series, I felt there was an effort to rise above that toxic noise and an effort was made to interact better with one another.
When it came to the prayer circle, a conclusion was reached to agree to disagree. While Prince Albert and Medicine Hat have big cultural demographic differences, it felt like commonalities became a focus point like respecting the similar passion the fans on both sides had for their respective legacy franchises and how fans had genuine love for their families allowing them to share fun stories from the home front. Some fans got to share how cheering for their teams had become a generational family thing.
From something that was bad that was isolated to the aftermath of Game 2, some fans found a rewarding journey finding a great path forward. A shout out has to go to Dale Engel, who heads one of the Tigers fan pages on Facebook, for encouraging fans in the Hat to be warm and welcoming to Raiders families and fans leading to Game 3 at Co-op Place. In a small way, I thought that helped get the positivity ball rolling on the fan front when it came to interacting with each other.
With all the good that came in the series win over the Tigers, the Raiders now get the Silvertips. Everett topped the WHL regular season standings with a 57-8-2-1 record and was rated first in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings. The Silvertips 57 wins and 117 standings points are team records.
The Raiders of course had an impressive regular season. They topped the Eastern Conference, claimed the East Division title and finished second overall in the WHL with a 52-10-5-1 mark. They were rated fourth in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings.
The Raiders and Silvertips went head-to-head once in the regular season, where Prince Albert posted a 4-1 victory on November 11, 2025 at the Angel of the Winds Arena. That encounter is commonly brought up in Silvertips game broadcasts with observations that the Raiders came to town and ran the show that night.
It was a regular season loss that wasn’t forgotten, with the Everett side marveling at how good Prince Albert was that night. The thought existed that the two clubs could meet six months later in the WHL Championship Series. That will come to pass starting on Friday in Everett.
The Silvertips have arguably been rolling the best structurally than anyone else has in the WHL post-season. In the WHL Playoffs, the Silvertips have posted a 12-1 record outscoring their foes 59-24. They will enter the WHL final with tonnes of rest having last played on April 28, when they downed the Vees in Penticton 4-2 to close out a sweep in the Western Conference Championship Series.
Netminder Anders Miller, who came to the Silvertips in an early season trade with the Calgary Hitmen, has provided top-level post-season goaltending for Everett. The 19-year-old has gone the distance in goal in the WHL Playoffs for the Silvertips posting a 12-1 record, a 1.79 goals against average, a .936 save percentage and one shutout.
Defenceman Landon DuPont has proven to be one of the WHL’s best playing as a full-time sophomore at age 16. He played full-time last season at age 15 obtaining Exceptional Player Status. In the current WHL Playoffs, DuPont has 17 points coming off four goals and 13 assists to go with a plus-14 rating.
While DuPont was selected first overall in the 2024 WHL Prospects Draft, Raiders rookie defenceman Brock Cripps was picked by Prince Albert right after DuPont in that same Prospects Draft. In the Raiders 15 games in the current WHL Playoffs, Cripps has recorded 17 points coming off three goals and 14 assists to go with a plus-11 rating.
Finnish import forwards Matias Vanhanen and Julius Miettinen both have had outstanding post-seasons for Everett and are currently the only players to have 10 or more goals in the WHL Playoffs. Vanhanen, who is an 18-year-old rookie left-winger, has 19 points coming off 10 goals and nine assists to go with a plus-13 rating in the post-season. Miettinen, who is a centre who turned 20 in January, has 18 points coming off 10 goals and eight assists to go with a plus-15 rating.
Silvertips star 19-year-old left-winger Carter Bear is also enjoying a strong post-season recording three goals, 13 assists to go with a plus-16 rating. Bear missed last year’s WHL post-season suffering a partially torn Achilles tendon from a skate cut that required surgery on March 9, 2025 in 3-2 loss in a tiebreaking shootout in a game against the Winterhawks in Portland. He has a signed NHL entry-level contract with the Detroit Red Wings.
Everett defenceman Brek Liske, who turned 18-year-old in January, has also had a strong post-season recording 11 points coming off three goals and eight assists to go with a plus-18 rating. Liske has to top plus-minus rating in the post-season.
The Silvertips are also out to put the ultimate end to their Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy jinx. Before this season, Everett finished first overall in the WHL on two occasions in 2006-07 and last season. In both of those campaigns, the Silvertips were unable to make the conference championship round let alone make the WHL final.
A meeting between the Raiders and Silvertips in the WHL final comes as little surprise as both clubs are having special campaigns. Now they play for a prize only one can win and the right to play in the CHL championship tournament – the Memorial Cup – in Kelowna starting May 22.
Darren Steinke is a Saskatoon-based freelance sportswriter and photographer with more than 25 years of experience covering the WHL. He blogs frequently at stankssermon.blogspot.com.
