By Matthew Gourlie
The Prince Albert Raiders were not ready for their season to be over.
The Moose Jaw Warriors were not ready to meet the level of desperation that the Raiders brought Saturday night at Mosaic Place.
The Raiders were the hungrier team in Game 5 and their 5-1 win in Moose Jaw will send the series back to Prince Albert Sunday night. The Warriors lead the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final series 3-2.
“Those guys were talking about roping some bear and we were done. So just a little note: we’re not done. They’re coming back to P.A. and we’ll be there tomorrow night,” said Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid.
The Warriors out-shot the Raiders 14-4 in the first period, but struggled to generate quality scoring chances — even with a four-minute power play early in the game. The Raiders enjoyed a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes after scoring on a pair of deflected shots.
“We didn’t have a sense of urgency and that’s what they had,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter. “They knew if they didn’t play well their season would be over. We sat around here for two days patting ourselves on the back because we were up 3-1 in the series.
“I warned them that we had to match their urgent hockey, their intense, desperate feeling, and we didn’t have it.”
The Warriors took the first four shots of the game and then Max Martin took a high sticking double-minor after cutting Vince Loschiavo.
“I thought the key was that four-minute kill,” Habschied said. “That kind of got us energized, but we were energized all game.”
The fourth win is always the hardest one to get in a series and Hunter felt his team only paid lip service to doing whatever it takes to win.
“(The Warriors) just played comfortable tonight. We didn’t feel uncomfortable at all tonight and we should have been uncomfortable from the get-go and we didn’t,” Hunter said. “They played hard and they checked well. We didn’t win any battles early. We made a couple of mistakes. One of the first two goals was a lucky redirect…guys getting out of the way of shots — we weren’t blocking shots.”
The Warriors upped their intensity in the middle of the second period after Prince Albert’s Vojtech Budik hit Josh Brook. The Warriors defenceman stayed down favouring his knee after the hit. There was no immediate call and after the four officials got together to discuss it, Budik wasn’t penalized.
“Everyone has been complaining on the P.A. side about calls all series, so maybe that will switch after that,” said Warriors overage forward Brayden Burke. “That happened and obviously that gets everyone a little more angry, but we can’t start from that. We have to be ready to win a hockey game from the first drop of the puck.”
Shortly thereafter Moose Jaw’s Branden Klatt took a boarding minor and Martin picked the top corner on the power play to give the Raiders a 3-0 lead.
Justin Almeida got the Warriors on the board, but they failed to score on a power play at the end of the second period and weren’t able to build on their momentum.
Sean Montgomery’s second goal of the night came 4:15 into the third period to give the Raiders a 4–1 lead. Curtis Miske scored a nearly identical goal to end the night of Warriors goalie Brody Willms who stopped 17 of the 22 shots he faced. Adam Evanoff made four saves in his second appearance of the playoffs.
Burke felt too many Warriors weren’t at their best and they got away from what had earned them a 3-1 series lead after a poor series opener.
“Consistency is what wins in the playoffs and we didn’t play as well as we did in P.A. You have to have the right guys doing the right things and you have to have a team effort and I didn’t think we had everyone going tonight,” Burke said. “It’s just as simple as: some guys didn’t play well. They didn’t do the things that they did in P.A. to win us hockey games, to get pucks out, get pucks in and then keep pucks in the zone and not allow them to run our show. When guys aren’t doing the right things you aren’t going to win many games in the playoffs.”
Brook returned in the third period, which is welcome news for a Warriors blue line that already has Brandon Schuldhaus and Kale Clague playing through injuries. The Warriors were already starting to load the bus to Prince Albert minutes after the game had ended.s
The Raiders were hoping to keep the momentum rolling Sunday.
“The quick turnaround definitely helps and hopefully we can take advantage of it,” Montgomery said.
Parker Kelly’s great first period redirection of a Brayden Pachal shot stood up as the game-winner. Brett Leason had a paid of assists for the Raiders.
Ian Scott finished with 31 saves.
The Raiders were 2-for-6 on the power-play and the Warriors were 0-for-4.
The Raiders power play is scoring at 2.6 per cent higher than it did during the regular season. The Warriors power-play, second in the WHL during the regular season at 26.3 per cent is 2-for-18 (11.1 per cent) in the post-season.
