By Matthew Gourlie
For the second night in a row, the Prince Albert Raiders couldn’t hang onto a 2-1 third period lead.
Saturday in Moose Jaw, however, the Raiders refused to let two points slip through their hands.
The Raiders rallied for a 3-2 shootout win to snap their four-game winless streak. They had a 2-0 lead on Swift Current Friday, but fell 3-2 in a shootout loss.
“It’s exciting for us. We’ve struggled against these guys…and we wanted to establish ourselves against them and I think we did that tonight,” said Prince Albert’s Jordy Stallard.
“It probably shouldn’t have went into overtime, I was responsible for that. I iced the puck and that cost us. We played a good overtime and were able to close it out in the shootout.”
After returning from their U.S. Division road trip, the Raiders got one game in the Art Hauser Centre Friday before opening a five-game road trip in Moose Jaw.
“We have another week on the road, but this is going to give us confidence heading into that,” Stallard said.
The Warriors had won nine of their previous 10 games, but the results belied their actual performance in some of those games. They blew a four-goal lead against Saskatoon Tuesday night and head coach Tim Hunter hadn’t been very impressed by their performance in their previous four outings.
“We haven’t played well in the three Saskatoon games, the Calgary game and this game. They were all very similar. Certain guys played OK. Certain people went back to their old ways tonight.,” Hunter said. “We went through 20 games where we got out of our comfort zone, we played hard and we competed. We stopped on pucks and played what I call ‘the right way.’ And now, in the last short while… playing teams lower in the standings, guys thought that they could get back to their comfort zone and be nice boys and just play the game. They’ll get another shift because they get to play and they’ll get another scoring chance and everything will be great. That’s what we’ve had in the last 10 days.
“My job is to get them back out of their comfort zone and stop being nice little boys and playing the game the way they want to play it and push them a little bit.”
The Warriors got off to a good start and dominated the first 10 minutes, out-shooting Prince Albert 10-2. Tate Popple made the most of a promotion to the third line with Luka Burzan and Tristin Langan as the trio found instant chemistry. Their work on the forecheck resulted in Burzan’s opening goal.
The Raiders wasted no time taking control of the game in the second period. Stallard hit the post seconds into the start of the period and the next time down the ice he scored to tie the game 35 seconds into the period.
“We came out kind of flat. I think the older guys in the room said that we had to step it up and we all took the initiative and everyone chipped in,” Stallard said.
Eric Pearce scored his first WHL goal 3:01 into the second period to give the Raiders a 2-1 lead.
The Warriors appeared to get the benefit of a pair of calls with goalie Brody Willms pulled and the sequence ended with Chase Hartje’s shot deflecting off of a Raiders’ defenceman and off of Jayden Halbgewachs in front to tie the game with 1:13 left in the third period.
The Raiders were able to control the puck in overtime, but Willms turned away Spencer Moe on three glorious chances as the Raiders out-shot Moose Jaw 7-1 in overtime.
Curtis Meger finished the game with 31 saves and turned away all three Warriors in the shootout as Stallard’s shootout goal stood up.
The Warriors weren’t assessed a penalty and finished 0-for-3 on the power play.
The Warriors welcomed defenceman Matthew Benson back in the lineup. Defencemen Jett Woo and Josh Brook remain out of the lineup.
