Allen Douglas / Kamloops Blazes

Kamloops loses sixth in a row; Prince Albert bigger, better, more composed.

Sometimes games go as everyone thinks they will, sometimes they don’t. In this case, they game went exactly how most thought it would. Prince Albert is the best team in Canada and tonight they showed why.

Early, and I mean early, Less than 30 seconds into the game the Sandman Centre faithful were treated to Prince Albert’s Brett Leason’s talent first hand. The hulking forward ripped a wrister past Kamloops Blazers’ goaltender Dylan Garand to give the Raiders an early 1-0 lead.

photo-PANow

Just over five minutes later, Kamloops’ native Jackson Caller scored his third of the season and first as a Blazer after Zane Franklin broke to the net and had his backhand saved by Raider backup goalie Boston Bilous.

Kamloops controlled much of the remainder of the period as it looked like Prince Albert had hit the country club showers early.

The Blazers had plenty of point blank chances that went wanting, and the Raiders did a fantastic job at getting in shooting lanes to block shots.

“They are a big heavy team who are not easy to play against. A veteran and composed team, That’s part of the game now, you have to be prepared to block some shots, it’s a chance to generate some energy for your team” Said head coach Serge Lajoie.

As fate would have it, Prince Albert was rewarded for their blocked shots when 16-year-old Ozzy Wiesblatt tipped home a Cole Fonstad shot to take the 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

The second period belonged to the nation’s best team. Prince Albert completely controlled the play in the Kamloops end multiple times with many top flight scoring chances.

Garand stood his ground making 10 saves, many of which were of the difficult variety.

The third period started the same way the second ended, with Prince Albert on the front foot. Lajoie burned a timeout early in the period to rest his troops after an icing call.

Off the ensuing faceoff, Ex-Victoria Royal Dante Hannoun redirected (with his foot) a Max Martin point shot to extend the Raiders lead to two.

Later in the period, Kamloops was awarded a power play but wasn’t able to generate much of anything and any chances they could generate were either blocked or easily saved.

Prince Albert salted this one away with 4:20 left when Justin Nachbaur finished off a Leason pass to make the score 4-1.

“Their work ethic and their mindset match their depth and skill. I’m very impressed with how they move the puck…You look at a team like Prince Albert and you learn a little bit, maybe our players see a little bit of how this team is gonna look in the next little while,” said Lajoie.

Kamloops heads to Prince George this weekend for a two game set with four massive divisional points on the line.

“We talked about the positives and things we can build off heading into PG. The result aside, we did a lot of good things. I thought we moved pucks, but maybe when we got ourselves into trouble our execution wasn’t as clean as it needs to be,” said Lajoie

AMAZING ATTENDANCE CONTEST 

Announced Attendance was 3712