Raiders edge short-staffed Wheat Kings

The Prince Albert Raiders earned their third win of the season over the Brandon Wheat Kings on Friday, skating to a 2-1 victory in Western Hockey League action at Assiniboine Credit Union Place.

Prince Albert (17-1-4-0) received its goals from Justice Christensen and Jonah Sivertson, with Nick Johnson replying for Brandon (11-11-1-0) in front of a crowd of 3,137.

To make a giant task even larger, Brandon scratched forwards Jaxon Jacobson and Luke Mistelbacher — two-thirds of its top line — plus Ryan Boyce and Easton Odut, which meant they dressed just 10 forwards and seven defencemen.

“Honestly, I’m proud of all of our guys,” Johnson said. “I know it’s not the outcome we wanted, but we knew we were going to be short-staffed this entire week and we skated lots going into the game, and we all felt confident.

“The entire game, I thought everyone worked. It was just unfortunate bounces and a couple of breakdowns and we had a couple of chances and that game goes either way. We played a good game.”

The Raiders won the earlier matchups 5-4 in overtime in Brandon on Sept. 27 and 4-1 in Prince Albert last Friday. Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said his team played well in the loss.

“I thought it was a pretty gritty effort,” Murray said. “I think our guys battled hard. We had some good chances and you saw our forwards get tired because they logged a lot of minutes. They’re obviously a real good team and we had some chances throughout the night I wish we could have buried but I thought we fought hard right to the end.

“It was just a couple of unfortunate plays that ended up being the difference in the game.”

Brandon had a good start and, with the benefit of a power play exactly six minutes into the game, built an early 6-1 lead on the shot clock.

The Wheat Kings opened the scoring 14 minutes 20 seconds into the game when Johnson deflected a shot by Dylan Ronald past Prince Albert goalie Dimitri Fortin of Winnipeg.

“It was a good whole-line effort,” Johnson said. “We got the puck low and got it high, and I parked my ass in front of the net and we went D and D and it went back to Ron, and he had a really good shot, that was a perfect shot for a tip. “Luckily I got a stick on it and it went in the net.”

The lead didn’t last.

Just 57 seconds later, Raiders captain Christensen leaned into a low one-time slapshot from the top of the circle that beat Brandon goalie Filip Ruzicka just inside the far post.

Three minutes into the second period, the teams traded back-to-back three-on-one chances, but Brandon defenceman Daniil Skvortsov made a nice stick check in his end to thwart the threat, and the Wheat Kings missed the net at the other end.

Prince Albert hammered a post a minute later as the teams looked for the go-ahead goal.

Soon after, Ruzicka made the save of his WHL career when he dove across the net to knock the puck out of the air with his arm on a one-time backdoor shot.

“In real time it looked fantastic,” Murray said. “I’ll watch some video now, but that was a huge save.”

Ruzicka lost his stick and while the Raiders maintained possession in the zone — and actually changed all five players one at a time — the Wheat Kings were able to keep the puck out of his net.

At the other end, Fortin denied Wheat Kings rookie Chase Surkan twice on glorious chances in what had become an impressive goaltending battle.

After an ineffective Wheat Kings power play to start the third period, the Raiders took possession of the puck in the neutral zone after Brandon’s Skvortsov and Gunnar Gleasman collided. On the ensuing three-on-one, Sivertson beat Ruzicka with a nice deke to give the visitors their first lead at 2-1 at the 2:55 mark.

“It’s understanding the league and understanding what your role is,” Murray said. “Guys had to eat some minutes up, but it’s the simpler the better, just getting the puck advanced into the other end, and unfortunately we had two guys run into each other, and the rest is history.”

Brandon pulled Ruzicka for the extra attacker with 30 seconds remaining but failed to find the equalizer.

Ruzicka made 33 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Fortin stopping 34 shots for the Raiders.

Brandon went 0-for-3 on the power play, with Prince Albert unsuccessful in two chances.

Prince Albert head coach Ryan McDonald was pleased with his team’s effort.

“I loved our effort,” McDonald said. “Again, coming into a real tough building to win in and a long road trip in and bus legs early, but we just continued to get better throughout the game. I thought we created some offensive zone chances with our positioning and our work and our O-zone grind, and guys just continued to work.

“Towards the end, we were playing on top and just being really hard defensively to get anything through.”

Brandon has the rest of the weekend off, and doesn’t play again until Wednesday, when it hosts the Saskatoon Blades.

This will be the first Saturday and Sunday that Brandon has had off in weeks, and Johnson said it comes at a good time.

“It’s a little weird, but I think we need it,” Johnson said. “It will be a good time to recover and hopefully we get some guys back.”

ICINGS: Brandon also skated without injured D Merrek Arpin and D Adam Hlinsky, who are both at home recovering … Manitobans Brady Turko of McCreary and Brayden Dube of Roblin took the ceremonial puck drop … Joby Baumuller led the Wheat Kings with eight shots on net … The game took two hours, 12 minutes to play … In the faceoff circle, Prince Albert won 31-23.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com