The St. Albert Raiders continue to steamroll through the midget AAA circuit after sweeping last weekend’s road trip.
The No. 1 team in the province is 14-4-4 following victories of 5-2 against the Southeast Tigers and 2-0 against the Lethbridge Pronghorns.
“Overall we’re very pleased,” said head coach Sandro Pisani. “We’re playing in some pretty tight hockey games and we’re limiting teams’ opportunities, which is very positive. We’re giving teams right around 20 shots a game and with our goaltending, regardless of who is in net, we feel that gives us a good opportunity to have success.”
The Raiders are undefeated in their last seven games, with 29 goals scored and eight against and two shutouts, after last month’s 4-1 road loss to the lowly Grande Prairie Storm (4-11-5).
“We had a little hiccup in Grande Prairie where we didn’t compete and we didn’t show up and I think that’s just the maturing part of a team,” Pisani said. “After that game we discussed how tough the teams are in the league and how we have to compete every night. We’ve really now understood if we compete hard and we play our systems we can have success and credit to the team and the kids for buying in and accepting that and coming to play. The margin in this league is really tight and you can see that in the standings as well.”
The eighth win in the last 12 games was Sunday’s shutout in Lethbridge. Captain Tyler Mrkonjic scored at even strength early in period two and defenceman Nickolas Koberstein added the insurance marker on the power play with 6:11 to play.
“Overall we competed hard. It’s a real difficult rink to play in, so I’m pleased with the effort, especially with back-to-back games and a lot of travel between games,” Pisani said.
The Pronghorns (8-10-3) were penalized nine times for 20 minutes, compared to two minors for the visitors.
“They really came at us physically and tried to run us out of the barn a little. We knew that was the tactic going in and we just told the guys to stick to our game plan and we’ll try and capitalize on the power play,” Pisani said. “We had two five on threes that we didn’t capitalize on so that was a little disappointing. That could’ve opened the game up and it was a tighter game because of that.”
Shots were 39-23 for the Raiders as Mitch Martell (10-2-1, 1.68 GAA) posted his league-leading third shutout.
“Mitch has been excellent for us on and off the ice. He’s been a great leader in the dressing room and a calming influence. Guys feel real confident playing in front of him,” Pisani said.
The night before in Medicine Hat, Martell faced 22 shots and Kyle Hehn added to his team-leading point total with a pair of goals and one assist for 29 in 22 games. Hehn’s second goal, and 17th of the season, with 2:06 remaining in the second, made it 2-1.
With under four minutes left in the game, goals by Mike Cardinal, Sebastian Auray and Mrkonjic (empty net) finished off the Tigers (2-12-4).
Tyler Dea and Dan Huculak added two assists apiece.
The Raiders peppered Xavier Burghardt with 54 shots, including a 25-8 margin in the third.
“Again I think the score is not quite indicative of the game. It was a 2-1 with about 3:30 to go,” Pisani said. “Again, it was the same type of game (as in Lethbridge). A real hard, physical game. Small rink. This time, just late in the game, we capitalized on a couple of good opportunities.”
The Raiders are back on the ice Saturday against the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (3-14-3) at 1:15 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena. It’s the last home game until Jan. 5.
Next weekend the Raiders play the Southside Athletic Club (11-4-6) and Canadian Athletic Club (8-10-3) at Bill Hunter Arena before heading to Calgary to compete in the Mac’s Midget AAA World Invitational Tournament. In the 2012 semifinals the Raiders blew a two-goal lead and lost 3-2 to Russia Severstal/Locomotiv to finish 5-1 overall.
Last year the Raiders finished 2-2 in pool play after going 0-3-1 the previous year.
“We haven’t talked about (the Mac’s) directly, but we’ve talked about late in games protecting leads. I know goals for and against are pivotal in a tournament like that and we’ve kind of mentioned that,” Pisani said. “With only the one game this week we’ll start to touch on the things we need to do to prepare for what’s going to be a difficult tournament but one we believe we can have success in.”
