Jan 17 vs Brandon

IT’S TIME…RAIDER REVIEW: The Prince Albert Raiders will be playing their 50th contest of the season tonight as they take on the Brandon Wheat Kings in the 2nd game of a home-and-home series…The two teams battled last night in Brandon with the Wheat Kings defeating the Raiders with a 7-2 decision…The Raiders were down 2-0 after the first period and 3-1 after the second…Dustin Cameron scored the Raiders lone goal through the first two periods with assists coming from Justin Bernhardt and Blaine Tendler…The Raiders scored early in the third as Bernhardt sniped his 25th of the season from Cameron and Igor Revenko…However, the whole story of last night’s contest was the penalty trouble the Raiders got into as they were penalized 15 times for a total of 57 minutes compared to Brandon’s 6 infractions for a total of 18 minutes…The Raiders were sent to the sin-bin five straight times in the middle of the third as Brandon capitalized on three of those and then added one late in the game…Garrett Zemlak was in net for all 7 Brandon goals as he faced 47 shots compared to only 17 on the Wheat Kings goaltender…The Raiders failed to pick up a point which moved them back to an 8th place tie with the Regina Pats for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference…Only three points separate 6th through 10th in the standings and a win tonight would be huge for the Raiders as their overall record fell to 22-24-2-1 on the season…The team has been solid since the Christmas break though and have gone a very impressive 7-2-0-1 in their past ten…The Raiders look to build some momentum at home as they hold a record of 13-8-1-1 at the Art Hauser Centre.
SPECIAL TEAMS: The Raiders have been explosive on the powerplay for the last while now as the PP unit is 9 for 26 over the last seven games…The Raiders are 47/217 (21.7%) with five shorthanded markers against which ranks them 6th in the league…The penalty kill has been up and down this season as the Raiders went 4 for 8 on the PK last night…The Raiders are 182/226 (80.5%) with two shorthanded goals which ranks them 11th in the WHL while down a man.
UPCOMING GAMES: The Raiders play host to the Kootenay Ice on Wednesday night and the Edmonton Oil Kings Friday night before heading to Moose Jaw to take on the Warriors one week from tonight.
VS. THE WHEAT KINGS: Tonight is the third of six meetings between Prince Albert and Brandon this season…The first time these two teams met this season was back on December 13th in Brandon where the Wheat Kings pulled out a 5-4 overtime victory…The Raiders scored 2 goals later in the third period to force the extra frame and register a point…Stanford was in net for the Raiders as he stopped 19 of the 24 shots he faced…Leading the way for the Raiders were Cameron, Herrod and Deck with 2 points each…Last night it was Cameron and Bernhardt leading the Raiders with two points each as Revenko and Tendler chipped in an assist…Michael MacAngus knows what its like to play Brandon this season as he faced off with the Wheaties 8 times already, picking up 4 points in seven games with Regina…The Raiders are 16-22-3-3 against the Wheat Kings over the last five seasons and are 10-7-2-2 in Prince Albert…Brandon has not lost in regulation in 12 straight games…The rivalry continues February 6th in Brandon.
INJURY REPORT: Ryan Button – Knee (TBD)
RAIDER REPORT: Justin Bernhardt (25G-43A) continues to lead the Raiders in scoring with 68 points and is ranked 3rd in WHL scoring…The Raiders new assistant captain is trying to be only the 2nd Raider in the top ten league scorers in the past 17 years…Seth Leonard ended up 7th in 2002-03 with 90 points…Bernhardt is averaging 1.375 points per game this season and is on pace for a 100 point campaign…He passed the 350 penalty minute mark of this career as he now has 67 on the season…MacAngus is only 2 points shy of 150 career points as he sits tied for 4th in team scoring…Nathan Deck and Ryan Button have been big producers on the point this season as they are both near the top 20 in point producing defencemen with 26 points and 25 points respectively…Rowley continues to pay dividends since coming over in the Zak Stebner deal as he is averaging a point per game and has 3 goals and 10 assists on the powerplay…The resurgence of Revenko has been huge for the Raiders as the boy from Belarus has 12 points and is a plus 7 since Christmas after producing only 5 points through the first half…Herrod has 9 points since the holidays…McDonald has 8 goals since the Christmas break as he continues to lead the Raiders in goals scored with 26 which puts him tied for 3rd in the league…Bernhardt (25), McDonald (26) and Cameron (24) combine for almost 50% of the Raiders 159 goals this season as they are all in the top 12 in the WHL…Stanford is one win away from 20 in his career while Zemlak is one win away from 25 in his career…Blaine Tendler will be playing in his 150th career game tonight…Prince Albert is 17-4-1-1 when leading after two periods and are 17-6-1-1 when scoring first…The green and gold are 16-3-1-0 when scoring 4 goals or more and 4-14-2-1 when allowing 4 goals or more…The Raiders are 13-8-1-1 on home ice and are 10-10-2-0 against East Division teams this season.