For the first time in over a month, the Prince Albert Raiders were defeated in regulation. Prince Albert fell 3-2 to the Red Deer Rebels at the Art Hauser Centre on Tuesday night.
Red Deer plays a physical, heavy brand of hockey. Raider head coach Jeff Truitt says Prince Albert knew that the Rebels were going to provide a tough test.
“We knew it was going to be a tight game. Right from the start, the first period dictated it with shots four four. There wasn’t much going on. It was like watching paint dry. The second period opened up a little bit. You know, we had some opportunities, especially when we had the power plays. We didn’t capitalize on that. They capitalized on two and they blocked about 30 shots. We didn’t do a good enough job of getting shots through. I’m not disappointed in our effort. We played hard and we did a lot of good things. We cleaned up a lot of things in the slot area that I thought that we needed to clean up on.”
Entering play on Tuesday, the Raiders had won three games in a row over the Regina Pats, Swift Current Broncos and Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Despite falling short against Red Deer, Truitt says it shows the young Raider team what the difference can be in the WHL.
“I like the compete. We’re winning (in) different ways and that’s great, but what we can learn here from tonight is that it’s a fine line. It’s a fine line between special teams and blocking shots and do what you need to do to win a game. Our effort was there. I thought that we worked hard, made some great plays, but it just wasn’t enough.”
After an opening period that saw no scoring and a combined eight shots between the teams, it would be Red Deer that opened the scoring at the 5:47 mark of the second period.
While on the power play, Derek Thurston would blast a slapshot past Dimitri Fortin blocker side for his second goal of the season. Hunter Mayo and Talon Brigley provided the assist.
Prince Albert would respond at the 7:19 mark. After a move to get past a Red Deer defender, Lukas Dragicevic would feed Riley Boychuk with a cross crease past and the 16-year-old would make no mistake putting the puck past the outstretched pad of Chase Wutzke for his second goal of the season. Luke Moroz had the secondary assist.
Shots after forty minutes favored Red Deer 22-21.
Red Deer would regain the lead at the 3:18 mark of the third period as Samuel Drancak would make good on a 2-on-1 following a turnover in the Raider zone for his third goal of the season. Carson Birnie and Kalan Lind assisted on the play.
After a high sticking call against the Raiders, the Rebels would pick up their second power play goal of the night with Hunter Mayo’s ninth goal of the season at the 6:40 mark.
Chase Wutzke made 41 stops for the Rebels to earn the win and first star honours in the contest. Dimitri Fortin made his second straight start for the Raiders making 25 saves on the night.
Max Hildebrand was scratched from the lineup. Truitt says the Raiders didn’t want to push things with their star netminder’s health.
“It’s just a preventative thing so we didn’t want our chance at all. We decided to sit him out here today. We’ll see where it is tomorrow.”
The Raiders return to action on Friday night when they welcome Tanner Howe and the Calgary Hitmen to the Art Hauser Centre. Puck drops at 7 p.m.
