Alisher Sarkenov during his first skate with the Raiders, and Justice Christensen arriving from the airport Tuesday night. (Facebook/Prince Albert Raiders)

By Nick Nielsen

Raiders roster nearly complete

Christensen returns, Sarkenov arrives

Oct 1, 2025 | 1:10 PM

The roster is officially complete for the Prince Albert Raiders with the arrival of two players over the course of the week. On Monday, Kazakhstan-born Alisher Sarkenov skated for the first time with the Raiders, and Tuesday marked the return of captain Justice Christensen from camp with the Detroit Red Wings.

Starting with Christensen, the Raiders captain was undrafted in the NHL but earned the callup with the Red Wings while he was in Slovakia during the World Ball Hockey Championships. After being undrafted in the WHL as well and earning a spot with the Raiders as a walk on in his 17-year-old season, Christensen said that his hockey journey so far has been a wild one, but now he’s focused on the season ahead with the Raiders.

“No matter the circumstances or how you get there, being able to perform when you get there is huge, and I was happy with how I did and coming back to Prince Albert now, I’m really excited for Saturday.”

In the locker room in Detroit, Christensen was able to rub elbows with the likes of Patrick Kane, Dylan Larkin, and Moritz Seider just to name a few. In the preseason game that Christensen played against the Pittsburgh Penguins, he was paired up with Travis Hamonic, a former Moose Jaw Warrior who has now played 900 regular season games in the NHL, and Christensen was able to learn a lot from that game.

“It was high pace and it was a lot of fun. A little bit older D-core I was playing with, so I was playing with Travis Hamonic who’s played a lot of games in the NHL. So he really helped me out and we talked lots and communicated on the bench and on the ice. He helped me out a lot and it was a lot of fun.”

Riderville

Now for the Hard Part

Dec 10, 2025

Seniors Scene

Christmas is Coming

Dec 09, 2025

Grey Cup!!!

Everything you wanted and more

Nov 21, 2025

Off the ice, Christensen got to rub elbows with the likes of Red Wings legends like Kris Draper, Nicklas Kronwall, and Nicklas Lidstrom, and long time staples in the NHL like Todd McLellan, Alex Tanguay, and Shawn Horcoff just to name a few. While most of those conversations were typically around the game of hockey and camp, Christensen said he had a memorbale encounter with Red Wings General Manager and longest serving captain in NHL history Steve Yzerman.

“All of it was a lot of fun and pretty surreal to kind of see all those people and those players. The one encounter was with Steve Yzerman, he was coming out of the elevator when I was going in, so that was pretty cool to finally shake his hand and meet him.”

Now that he’s returning to the Raiders, Christensen leaves the role of ‘rookie’ and comes back to his role as a leader for the Raiders. His biggest takeaway from the Red Wings was how everyone is constantly motivated to push their hardest whether it’s game time or training time, and Christensen plans to bring that work ethic back to his team.

“Watching those guys and seeing how they prepare and the way that they handle themselves on the ice. It’s always like 110 per cent effort, no matter what they’re doing. So for the younger guys, instilling that into them and telling them what it was like and what those guys do, even though they’ve been in the NHL for so long that they still put that work in every day and that they continue to build every day and work for what they get.”

With the addition of Christensen coming back, that brings the Raiders roster up to four 20-year-olds with Brayden Dube, Harrison Lodewyk, and Aiden Oiring all playing in the first four games of the season. Both Dube and Oiring are tied for the team lead in points with 3G-2A-5P each, and Lodewyk is right behind them with 1G-3A-4P.

The Raiders can only keep three 20-year-olds past October 10, and with Dube, Lodewyk, and Oiring all playing so well to start the year, along with both Oiring and Lodewyk wearing ‘A’s on their sweaters, the decision on October 10 of which player to trade is going to be tough for Raiders General Manager Curtis Hunt.

Christensen isn’t the only addition to the Raiders lineup this week though. Max Heise returned from the San Jose Sharks camp last week, and he debuted during the Raiders weekend road trip in Regina and Brandon. In those two games, Heise posted 2G-1A including the game tying goal in Brandon that gave the Raiders the opportunity for their 5-4 overtime win.

The other piece joining the Raiders this week is Kazakhstan’s Alisher Sarkenov, who finally joins the team after a lengthy process in securing a visa. The soon to be 18-year-old forward first practiced with the team on Monday and is expected to be in the lineup come Saturday when the Raiders start a six game homestand and welcome the Red Deer Rebels.

The lone Raider yet to make his debut this year is still Ethan Bibeau, who is out to start the season with an upper body injury that was suffered after his only preseason game of the year on September 6.