The St. Albert Tire Warehouse Raiders were facing elimination in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League north division semifinals after Sunday’s loss to the Leduc Oil Kings.
Game four in the best-of-five playoff was played Tuesday in Leduc but the score was unavailable at press time.
A win by the Raiders would force a deciding game Thursday at 7 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena.
The Raiders trailed 2-1 in the series after dropping a 3-2 decision in game three in St. Albert.
The Oil Kings struck twice in the third period before Logan Hunter notched his second goal of the game with 6:32 remaining in regulation time.
Hunter led the Raiders in playoff points with four after three games and shared the team lead in goals with Xavier Halterman at three apiece.
The Raiders outshot the visitors 12-8 in the third and 30-28 overall.
Chris Curr (1-2, 3.65 GAA) started his third playoff game after facing 49 shots in the 4-3 overtime win in St. Albert and 53 shots in the 5-4 OT loss in Leduc last week.
The Raiders (16-14-4, 103 GF/97 GA) and Oil Kings (14-15-5, 94 GF/103 GA) finished second and third, respectively, in the north standings and in league play the Raiders won 3-0 Jan. 15 in Leduc and the teams skated to a 4-4 draw Jan. 28 in St. Albert.
The series winner plays the Sherwood Park Kings (23-8-3) or Southside Athletic Club (15-18-1) in the best-of-five north final.
The Sutter North Cup provincial qualifier starts Thursday for the St. Albert Flyers in the Alberta Minor Midget AAA Hockey League.
The tournament consists of eight north division teams split into two pools and the two finalists advance to the six-team provincials, March 22 to 26 in Grande Prairie.
The Flyers (32-4-1, 200 GF/55 GA) are in pool A with games Thursday against the eighth-place Lloydminster Rage (7-25-5) at 8 p.m. and Friday against the sixth-place Leduc Oil Kings (17-18-2) at 10:45 a.m. and fourth-place KC Centennials (25-10-2) at 7 p.m. at Terwillegar Community Rec Centre.
Pool B consists of the second-place Sherwood Park Squires (26-7-4), third-place PAC Saints (26-11), fifth-place SSAC Bulldogs (23-9-5) and seventh-place CAC (15-16-6).
The top two teams in both pools meet in Saturday’s crossover semifinals at 4 and 7 p.m. at Terwillegar.
The final is noon Sunday at Terwillegar.
Visit www.ammhl.ca for results.
The Flyers finished first overall in the AMMHL in wins, goals against and points (65) and the Lethbridge Hurricanes (29-2-6, 201 GF/59 GA) were the south division leaders.
The last league game for the Flyers was Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the south division CBHA Rangers (20-13-4) at Akinsdale Arena.
Carson Henry opened the scoring in the first period and Evan Fradette faced a game-high 28 shots.
Fradette (15-2) led all AMMHL netminders with a .947 save percentage, 1.18 GAA and six shutouts.
Ryley Osland (17-2-1) was third overall with a .937 save percentage and 1.65 GAA.
Captain Blake Sydlowski placed third in the AMMHL scoring race with 69 points and Stuart Dovey tied for seventh with 60 points.
Dovey also led the Flyers in goals with 31.
