Former Raider captain Nolan Allan handles the puck in his first game back to Prince Albert as a member of the Seattle Thunderbirds on Jan. 13, 2023. (Mark Peterson/Prince Albert Raiders)
By Logan Lehmann
down to the wire

Thunderbirds pull away late to down Raiders 3-2

Jan 13, 2023 | 11:02 PM

PRINCE ALBERT, SK – The Prince Albert Raiders went toe-to-toe with the league-best Seattle Thunderbirds on Friday night, but fell short 3-2 at the Art Hauser Centre.

The loss comes 72 hours after falling to the Portland Winterhawks 5-3 at home.

Raiders head coach Jeff Truitt told paNOW he was pleased with how his team performed over these past couple games and that his players showed up and were ready for the task at hand.

“We bent but we didn’t break,” he said. “(The players) were excited about this challenge. We’ve seen a number of good teams over the course of the last little while and they’re up for the challenge. They’re not intimated by the moment nor are they intimidated by the upper echelon teams.”

Niall Crocker and Sloan Stanick were the goal scorers for the Raiders in the game while Ryder Ritchie had two assists, and Justice Christensen had one.

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Kyle Crnkovic, Brad Lambert, and Jordan Gustafson each tickled the twine for Seattle in the game while Crnkovic, Gracyn Sawchyn, Sawyer Mynio, and Nico Myatovic all had an assist.

Max Hildebrand made 31 saves between the pipes as Prince Albert falls to 14-23-3-0 on the campaign.

Thomas Milic started for the opposition where he turned aside 26 shots to help the Thunderbirds improve to 30-6-1-1 on the year.

COMPLETE BOX SCORE

Neither team could manage to find the back of the net in the opening period, so the score remained deadlocked going into the second. In terms of shots, Seattle doubled up PA in the first, 10-5.

The score didn’t stay like that for long in the second when a familiar foe broke the scoreless tie. Crnkovic netted his 20th of the season off a pass from Sawchyn to put the T-Birds up just two minutes in.

A few minutes later and there was a tie game. Ritchie got the puck in the corner and rung the puck around the boards behind Seattle’s net, which found the stick of Crocker who then walked out into the front of the net and backhanded the puck far side on Milic to pull the Raiders back to even. Shots were 16-13 for the Thunderbirds heading into period three.

Seattle regained the lead just 1:19 into the final frame when Lambert got lit the lamp in his first career game off the rush to make it 2-1. Nine minutes later and the T-Birds strike again, this time it’s Gustafson joining the party for his 16th.

Fast forward to the final two minutes of the game, the Raiders pull Hildebrand for the extra man and it paid off when Stanick scored with 1:39 to go. Unfortunately for PA, that’s as close as they would get as Seattle ran out the clock to hold on for the close 3-2 win.

A quick turnaround for the Raiders now as they’re back in action Saturday when they face the Oil Kings in Edmonton.

—

logan.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @lloganlehmann

by Logan Lehmann
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