Darren Steinke
Stanks On Sports
Max Hildebrand is still giving the Prince Albert Raiders a chance to win every night.
The 20-year-old netminder has been the steady hand for a Raiders team that is working towards finding a new identity in the 2024-25 campaign. In the off-season and at the start of this season, the Raiders made changes with their roster electing to go with a number of younger players and made tweaks through trades looking to create more offence.
The deals the Raiders made on the trade front along with a key graduate departure saw them go without five players who played the bulk of the past two seasons with the team making up a key part of the club’s core. The key graduate was star left-winger Sloan Stanick, who led the Raiders last season in scoring with 84 points coming off 30 goals and 54 assists.
The biggest returnee for the Raiders was Hildebrand. At the moment, his statistics don’t look as flashy as they did last season.
So far this season in 15 appearances, Hildebrand has recorded a 6-6-2 record, a 3.79 goals against average and a .893 save percentage. Last season, Hildebrand posted a 25-20-4 record, a 2.88 goals against average, a .907 save percentage and two shutouts.
What the statistics don’t show is Hildebrand has been as sharp as ever. With the Raiders going through growing pains in trying to find a new identity, Hildebrand has faced more quality scoring chances than he has likely at any point during his time in Prince Albert since joining the Raiders full time part way through the 2021-22 campaign.
After three seasons of having strong drafts, the Raiders strength lies in their 17-year-old, 16-year-old and 15-year-old age groups. A lot of that is still potential strength, but the Raiders are going with the vision that they can be really strong in the future, while still being a playoff team now. Along the way, the team will experience growing pains where the enormity of the journey seems incredibly large.
The growing pains hit early as the Raiders got out to a 2-7-2 start. They embarked on their B.C. road trip pretty much right out of the gate. That provides extra challenges of being on the road for an extended stay and balancing school work for the high school aged players.
In the current era of the WHL, young players usually come to clubs having excelled in school, and they still expect to do really well in school playing in the WHL. The initial adjustment of balancing hockey and school is big and can be shocking for some.
With all that noted, the Raiders only got one win on the five game trip through the B.C. Division, which ended with an erase the footage 10-1 loss to the Vancouver Giants in Langley on October 19. During that whole time, you could never question Hildebrand’s effort level even in a game like the loss to the Giants where the setback seemed inevitable.
After the drubbing at the hands of the Giants, the Raiders were able to get reset over the course of five off days and get used to each other. Along the way, they started to build a sense that they were gaining some traction.
The Raiders have picked up four wins over their last five games to get their record to a more respectable 6-8-2. Hildebrand started all five of those games and came up with a number of clutch saves.
That included getting a 4-3 victory after a tiebreaking shootout against the Pats in Regina on November 5 and a 5-4 overtime triumph over the Wheat Kings in Brandon this past Saturday. The one loss proved to be another younger learning experience moment dropping a 9-4 decision against the Swift Current Broncos on November 1 at the Art Hauser Centre.
Still, there have been signs of the hope of what might be. Hildebrand’s play in goal is allowing the Raiders to find their footing to make that hope of what can be come through.
NCAA had to allow CHL players, other notes
Last Thursday, the inevitable shoe dropped that will change the landscape across junior hockey.
The NCAA Division I Council voted to abolish old rules that classified CHL players as professional. Starting on August 1, 2025, players from the CHL’s three major junior circuits in the WHL, OHL and QMJHL will be eligible to play for NCAA Division I teams. Basically, CHL players will maintain NCAA eligibility as long as they have not signed an entry-level contract with an NHL team.
The rules that had existed before were basically stupid and really put undue pressure on young players mainly from Canada to make a decision if they would play for a major junior team or join the junior A ranks to keep their NCAA eligibility alive. As far as the development process goes, players will be able to make decisions more naturally and benefit from having more freedom with their path through the game in attempting to make the NHL.
Under the old rules, the NCAA kept major junior hockey players out on the basis of getting a monthly stipend that has never hit $1,000 a month in Canadian dollars. That was how the NCAA classified CHL players as professional.
That rule became obsolete as the NCAA landscape has shifted with changes in guidelines with regards to name, image and likeness as well as rules regarding the transfer portal in recent years. You can’t really keep CHL players out of the NCAA saying they are professionals due to a monthly stipend and then say it is alright famed Louisiana State University Tigers women’s gymnastics team member Olivia “Livvy” Dunn can make millions in U.S. dollars through NIL since those guidelines changed in 2021.
Now the question is how will junior hockey look going forward?
That is still uncertain, and it will become clearer with the passing of time. There has been the thought that CHL players could jump to the NCAA upon turning 18-years-old in order to make NIL money.
With that said, Dunn’s case is the extreme one in regards to how much money can be brought in through NIL, and only a few NCAA athletes will make those figures. Plus, a player will likely need to be established in the NCAA for a couple of seasons before NIL becomes a factor unless they have a major following on Instagram or other social media channels.
On the social media following front, Dunn has 5.3-million followers on Instagram, while phenom centre and former face of the WHL in 19-year-old Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard has 764,000 followers on Instagram.
When it comes to speculation, there likely won’t be a wave of CHL players jumping to the NCAA to get NIL money, but inevitably, there will likely be one or two somewhere down the road that will go that route.
- On Monday, former Raiders netminder Nathan Preston was named the WHL Goaltender of the Week for the week ending on Sunday. Preston picked up the honour for making 47 saves on Saturday in a 7-2 home ice victory over the visiting Red Deer Rebels. That was his only action for the week the award was given.
- On Monday, the Tri-City Americans pushed their winning streak out to 12 games. They trailed the visiting Calgary Hitmen 4-2 after the first period and rallied for a 6-5 overtime victory. Left-winger Jake Gudelj wired home the winner off a two-on-one break 51 seconds into the extra session. Gudelj has goals in six straight games for the Americans finding the back of the net seven times over that stretch. The Americans improved to 13-3-1 with the win, while the Hitmen’s record moved to 7-7-3-1 with the extra time setback.
- Medicine Hat Tigers star left-winger Gavin McKenna leads the WHL in scoring with 37 points coming off 11 goals and 26 assists to go with a plus-14 rating in 19 regular season games. McKenna turns 17-year-olds on December 20. He won’t be eligible for the NHL Entry Draft until 2026 due to his late in the year birthday.
- On Saturday, Raiders highly touted 16-year-olds in defenceman Daxon Rudolph and centre Riley Boychuk along with assistant coach Ryan McDonald helped Canada White capture gold at the Under-17 World Hockey Challenge in Sarnia, Ont. Canada White took the gold medal contest over Canada Red 3-1.
- With Rudolph and Boychuk rejoining the Raiders roster, the Raiders reassigned 16-year-old forward Jonah Sivertson to the Regina Pat Canadians under-18 AAA team and 18-year-old defenceman Brandon Osborne to a team to be determined on Tuesday. Sivertson picked up two assists in 14 games with the Raiders, while Osborne was held pointless in four appearances with the Prince Albert side.
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.
