Franchise Playoff History:
These two teams have met twice in the post season, in 2013 Red Deer was the fourth seed and Prince Albert was the fifth. Red Deer took the first two games at home and followed that up with two more victories at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert.
The other time they met in the post season was the 2014 play-in game. Prince Albert took the lone game to make the playoffs on “Super Tuesday” 5-3 in Red Deer.
2018-19 Head-To-Head:
Red Deer: 1-2-0-1
Prince Albert: 3-1-0-0
Red Deer was the first team to defeat the Prince Albert Raiders this season as the Raiders started out extremely hot. Just one week later, Prince Albert got revenge on home ice. They also won the last two games of the season series. The final game, played in Prince Albert, required a shootout. Every game these two teams played was settled by a single goal.
Raiders forward Brett Leason scored three times in the four games between the two teams, Reese Johnson and Brandon Hagel had two goals each for the Rebels. Eight players scored goals in the series for the Raiders while Red Deer had scoring from seven players.
Both goalies played well in the season series, Red Deer faced 147 shots in regulation and overtime compared to 105 for Prince Albert. Not including the goal awarded for the shootout the Raiders out-scored the Rebels 10-9.
2018-19 Season:
Prince Albert: (54-10-2-2) 112 points 307 Goals For 156 Goals Against, Scored the most goals in the WHL and allowed the second least. Ranked #2 nationally
Red Deer: (33-29-4-2) 72 points 223 Goals for 225 Goals against
Storylines To Watch:
Can Red Deer contain the three scorers in the top 30 in regular season scoring? For the most part they did it in the regular season, Leason did lead the way with six points in the four games they played.
Ethan Anders needs to continue to stand on his head, despite giving up three goals in one of the games in the season series in under 12 minutes he still had a .930 save percentage, Scott on the other hand, has been in the MVP talk and has a .914 save percentage against Red Deer.
Will anyone on the Rebels step up? Brandon Hagel is a one man force but the entire hockey world knows it and the Prince Albert Raiders will put their best players against him all series long. Who on the Rebels is primed for a run? Is it captain Reese Johnson with 53 regular season points (27G, 26A) or is it Cameron Hausinger, who had 54 points? Does Brett Davis find his stride with the team? He had 31 points in 41 regular season games with the Rebels.
Faceoffs are very important, especially in the playoffs. These two teams have two of the best in the league at faceoffs, so it will be interesting to see how they are deployed. Reese Johnson led the league in faceoff win percentage (over 300 faceoffs) at 65.4%, not to be out done, Sean Montgomery was third at 57.7%
How Brett Sutter and Marc Habscheid deploy those weapons is anyone’s guess, Johnson has proven to be an effective penalty killer as well as the top faceoff man in the offensive zone.
Another thing to keep an eye on is the demeanor of the two head coaches. Sutter and Habscheid are both known for having tempers from time to time. Should things start going sideways for either team, closely watch the benches for actions and body language. This series has the potential to blow up should one team, likely Prince Albert, begin to run away with things.
How They Match Up:
On paper these two teams don’t have a lot in common. The Raiders were ranked nationally for the entire season. Red Deer started off really well, leading the Central Division for the entire first half. Since then though the team has really fallen off the wagon and squeezed into the playoffs through the backdoor.
Prince Albert has the most high powered offense in the entire WHL, scoring at a 4.51 goals per game rate while the Rebels scored at a 3.28. In their season series it was a lot closer that that, Prince Albert scored 2.5 goals to Red Deer’s 2.25.
Prince Albert (2.29) also allowed fewer goals than Red Deer (3.31). While Ethan Anders showed flashes of brilliance throughout the season, it was Ian Scott who stood atop the goaltending stats. Scott allowed just 1.83 goals per game in his 49 games of action to go with a .932 save percentage. He also earned eight shutouts. Anders played in 57 games and sported a 3.09 goals against average and a .907 save percentage.
DUBNetwork Prediction: Prince Albert in five games.
