It’s a race to the finish line for the St. Albert Raiders with five games left to win the north division pennant.
The midget AAA team is within striking distance of the first-place Canadian Athletic Club with a game in hand after Sunday’s 4-2 decision at Bill Hunter Arena.
“It was a big win. We needed the win to stay close to them and now we’re just one point behind them,” said right-winger Cam Lockard. “We’ve just got to keep pushing. We’ve got a game in hand so a couple of more wins and we’ll be there.”
Lockard tied it at two with a one-timer on the power play halfway through the second period for his 11th goal and 17th point in 28 games. Less than five minutes later Cam Mazur (10th) scored the winner. Ryan Peckford set up both goals by his linemates.
Jaedon Leslie (sixth) added the insurance marker in the third from Ryan Cox.
The trio of Colin Schmidt, Parker AuCoin and Riley Smith combined on the team’s first goal as Schmidt (ninth) knotted the score at one.
Ethan Crotty (5-3-2) stopped 21 shots in the last two periods and a game-high 31 overall.
“Crotty played really well to get us the win,” Lockard said. “We kind of got off to a slow start but then we just beared down. In the third period we did well in our own zone to keep our two goal lead.”
It was the ninth win in 11 games and the first after the Raiders (16-6-7) lost two in a row.
CAC (18-8-4) is 2-3-1 in January after going 0-3-1 in December.
The top two teams in the north receive first-round byes and the third-place Lloydminster Bobcats (16-9-3) are pushing the Raiders and CAC for one of those spots.
“We want to go into the playoffs on a hot streak so we can’t afford to lose any games,” Lockard said.
Two weeks ago the Raiders suffered their first loss after eight consecutive wins during a 15-game undefeated streak (12-0-3) in the 8-1 shellacking by the Bobcats in the Border City.
Last weekend, the Raiders travelled to Grande Prairie and were soundly beaten 7-3 by the Storm (13-10-5).
“We weren’t playing well. We got a little bit too confident. Our practices maybe weren’t as good as they should’ve been and it reflected in our games,” Lockard said. “We had to get back to playing our game.”
The Storm pumped in three goals in the first and turned a 3-2 lead after 40 minutes into a runaway with four straight in the third while outshooting the Raiders 49-36 overall.
“We just didn’t play within our systems. In the first period we had a couple of unlucky bounces and a couple went in off our own guys and then it just kind of went downhill from there,” Lockard said.
The next league game is Jan. 31 against the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (12-10-6) at 1:15 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena but Sunday the Raiders host the Hockey Alberta U16 Canada Winter Games team in exhibition action at 2:30 p.m. Peckford and Ian Mitchell of the Raiders are on the U16 roster.
“We’re playing against a couple of our guys and that will make it a little more fun,” Lockard said. “We’ve just got to play like we always do. It’s a game just like any other game.”
Peckford is a high-scoring centre from Stony Plain with 14 goals and 29 points in 25 games and Mitchell is a steady defenceman from Calahoo with one goal and 11 points in 27 games.
Lockard, 15, played on the same bantam AAA team with Peckford and Mitchell last season with the Spruce Grove PAC Saints.
“They’re both really good players. Peckford is an offensive threat who scores lots of goals and Mitchell is good defensively. They’re both key players for our team so it’s going to be different playing without them,” said Lockard, a Grade 10 student at Hilltop High School in Whitecourt who was selected by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the fourth round (72nd overall) in the 2014 Western Hockey League bantam draft.
