The pressure to perform fuels the fire inside the team to beat in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League.
“The guys feed off that,” said netminder Andreai Proctor-Ramirez of the smoking hot 24-1-3 St. Albert Nektar Raiders. “We want to stay on top and we’re willing to show it day in and day out that we should be number one and we’ll still be the number one team.”
The end game is the Telus Cup in April at Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.
“We’re trying to push ourselves and push each other to get to Telus. We want make it a little further than we did last year,” said Proctor-Ramirez, one of five returnees from the 19-11-4 north division pennant winners that finished 6-5 in the playoffs after losing the AMHL final in three games to the Calgary Buffaloes.
“We want to win that much more,” Proctor-Ramirez added. “The guys are really close with each other and that makes it a lot easier for the guys to push each other to excel.”
The seventh win a row and the 16th in 17 games for the streaking Raiders was Wednesday’s 7-1 thrashing of the Leduc Oil Kings (5-13-8) at Jarome Iginla Arena.
“We have a pretty good team this year and obviously it shows by our record,” said Koehn Ziemmer, a gifted 15-year-old centre. “It’s going to be exciting to see how far we go in playoffs.”
The latest victory was the sixth in January after going 2-1-1 at the Mac’s Cup in Calgary as the defending champions.
“We’ve been playing well because we stick to all of our details and keep everything simple. We practice everything we play,” Ziemmer said.
Four games remain for the Raiders before their first-round bye and the start of the best-of-five north semifinal.
“We have to continue what we're doing and that’s keep battling, being resilient in all the zones, be physical and take the other team hard into the boards and play our game,” Proctor-Ramirez said. “We have to continue to better ourselves and improve on those little critical areas.”
The Raiders are averaging a league-best 1.42 goals-against per game with Proctor-Ramirez (13-1-2, 1.17 GAA) and Carson Ironside (11-0-1, 1.76 GAA) combining for six shutouts.
“We’re confident in our group ahead of us that they’ll help us do our job," Proctor-Ramirez said. “The guys just make it easier for us to make the saves that we need to. They block a ton of shots and that helps me and Carson out so much. We don’t have to face as much rubber as a lot of other goalies that we face and that gives us an advantage.”
Proctor-Ramirez, 17, ranks first among AMHL puck stoppers in wins, goals-against average, save percentage (.952), shutouts (four) and is second in minutes played (926).
“This season I came in with the mentality that I have to step up my game so much more because it’s my last year and I want to make it further into my career and play AJHL,” said the Grade 12 Memorial Composite student.
Last season the former midget AAA Lloydminster Bobcat posted a 10-5-3 record, 2.66 GAA, .908 save percentage and one shutout in league play, but in the playoffs was the backup to Evan Fradette, the most valuable playoff performer in the AMHL, and in 43 minutes allowed two goals.
“I was upset a little bit last season because I didn’t get to play as much as I would’ve liked so throughout the season I’ve tried to work my butt off and have that mentality that there is always going to be someone out there that’s going to be working harder than you and I don’t want that opportunity to make it further to slip out because I’m not working as hard as anyone else,” said Proctor-Ramirez, who went 1-1-1 with a 2.37 GAA at the Mac’s Cup during the Christmas break.
His last start was Sunday’s 6-3 road win against the Calgary Royals (9-14-4) with 27 saves.
The night before in Lethbridge, Ironside handled 29 shots in the 4-2 decision against the Hurricanes (14-9-5) in the team’s first game after the exam break.
The Raiders piled up the shots with 42 against the Hurricanes and 59 against the Royals.
“The two games were really good. We were down (2-1) against Lethbridge going into the third and we had a really strong third period and squeaked one out of there and then in Calgary the first two periods were slow for us (with leads of 3-2 and 5-3) and then we picked it up in the third (19-6 in shots) and came out with the win,” said Ziemmer, a goal scorer in both games.
The Raiders were led by Ty Cheveldayoff’s two goals in Lethbridge and a pair each by Drew Kuzma and Maddux Nollski in Calgary.
The Raiders are 11-1-1 on home ice after scoring seven times on 43 shots while Ironside was tested 15 times.
Cheveldayoff and Ziemmer in the first period, Jaxon Dube and Tye Pedersen in the middle frame and Evan Forrest, Noah Wilson and Breck McKinley in the third found the back of the net.
Dube, Wilson, Matthew Reidy and affiliate Jacob Lovsin also picked up two assists apiece and Forrest finished with four points on a line with Ziemmer and Chase Visser that's shown consistency in recent games.
“We’ve been clicking pretty good together,” said Ziemmer, the team leader in goals with 13 in 22 games and who is tied for fourth in points with 22.
“It was a slow start for me, but I’ve picked it up after the Christmas break and it’s been better,” said the U16 Team Alberta forward at the WHL Cup in October at Calgary.
Ziemmer was also the highest-scoring Raider at the Mac’s Cup with five goals and seven points in the opening two games of the tournament.
The Mayerthorpe product was selected fourth overall in the 2019 Western Hockey League bantam draft by the Prince George Cougars and in his last season of bantam with the Okanagan Hockey Academy of Edmonton was named the MVP of the John Reid Memorial Tournament.
Ziemmer was asked to provide a scouting report on himself.
“I think I'm a goal scorer who is good in the offensive zone and can bury chances and I'm good on D when they need me there,” said the Grade 10 Bellerose student who’s father, Rob, was a shifty point-producing forward with the midget AAA Raiders and St. Albert Saints in the Alberta Junior Hockey League.
Today at 1:15 p.m. the Raiders host the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (13-10-4) and Sunday’s start time is 2:30 p.m. against the Royals in St. Albert.
ICE CHIPS: Pederson (5-17-22 in 27 games) and McKinley (4-17-21 in 26 games) are listed first and second, respectively, as the top-scoring AMHL defencemen.
Captain Mathieu Gautier is tied for 10th in AMHL scoring with 28 points in 28 games.
Dube and Forrest are second on the Raiders in points with 23 apiece.
Dube and Ronin Pusch also have 12 goals each.
