Weekend preview: Raiders poised to climb standings with weekend at home

The Raiders and Broncos have played five times already this season. The Broncos won the first two games 5-4 and 9-4, but the Raiders have taken the season series lead with three straight wins 6-5, 2-1, and 7-5 most recently on December 28.

The Broncos are fairly well rested, only playing two games in the last 12 days. In both of those home games, the Broncos have won 6-3 over Edmonton at home on Wednesday, and then lost 2-1 in overtime against Lethbridge. On the season, the Broncos are sitting eighth in the Eastern Conference with a record of 20-17-1-1 (W-L-OTL-SOL) with 42 points on the year.

The Raiders are just three points ahead of the Broncos with 45, tied with the Brandon Wheat Kings for the sixth spot in the East, and four points back of the East Division lead. On the season, the Raiders have a record of 21-15-3-0 on the year.

Scoring wise, the Raiders goals-per-game rate has been slowly climbing for a while now and is sitting at 3.8, dead even with 150 goals for and against this year.

For the Broncos, they have similar numbers with 144 goals for and 145 goals against, good for an average of just below 3.7 per game.

On special teams, the Raiders are sitting second in the league right now on the powerplay with a 28.9 per cent success rate. On the penalty kill, the Raiders are still sitting second last in the league at 70.9 per cent.

The Broncos sit in the middle of the league in both powerplay and penalty kill so far this year with their powerplay operating at 24.8 per cent, tied for the ninth spot in the league with two other teams, while their penalty kill is tied for 12th in the league with Kamloops at 75.8 per cent.

Aiden Oiring had the game winner on Tuesday for the Raiders, keeping his team lead in points at 18G-37A-55P. Tomas Mrsic still sits second with 23G-30A-53P and is tied for the league lead in powerplay goals with 13. Rilen Kovacevic has entered the top three in scoring for the Raiders with 23G-22A-45P on the year, tied with Lukas Dragicevic with 8G-37A-45P.

The defensive pairing of Daxon Rudolph and Justice Christensen has been hot for the Raiders as of late. Rudolph comes into the action on a seven game point streak with 1G-9A and has managed two assists in each of his last three games, and Christensen has 4G-2A in his last six games. Kovacevic is riding a four game point streak with 2G-3A since joining the Raiders, Niall Crocker has 2G-1A in his last three games, and Oiring has 1G-2A in his last two.

Leading the Broncos in scoring this year is Luke Mistelbacher with 28G-33A-61P on the year. Clarke Caswell is second with 15G-39A-54P, and Brady Birnie sits third with 20G-31A-51P.

Because of the low scoring affair against Lethbridge two games ago, the Broncos have no one entering Friday’s action with an active point streak. Luke Mistelbacher however is still on an impressive run with 0G-2A in his last game and 5G-4A in his last five games, Brady Birnie had a 2G-1A night in the most recent game with Edmonton, giving him 2G-2A in his last three games.

In goal, Max Hildebrand is coming off earned his second shutout of the season two games ago and had some spectacular saves as he stopped 37 of 41 shots in the follow up against Portland. He’s sitting tied for the fifth best save percentage in the league at 0.909 with a record of 17-9-3-0 on the year. Dimitri Fortin has his save percentage sitting at 0.879 on the year,

As for the Broncos netminders, Reid Dyck comes in with a record of 13-14-1-0 on the season and a 0.896 save percentage this year. Backup Joey Rocha was pulled in the last came between the Raiders and Broncos, his record sits a 7-3-0-1 on the year with his save percentage sitting at 0.886 since joining the Raiders, and has a record of 4-4 with the Raiders this year.

On to Saturday’s matchup, the Raiders will welcome the Red Deer Rebels for the second time this season and their third matchup overall. Earlier this year, the Rebels ruined an eight game point streak of the Raiders in a grind it out 3-2 game in Prince Albert, but the Raiders got revenge just a week ago with a 3-0 win in Red Deer.

The Rebels made a lot of trades for draft picks around the trade deadline, and they are starting to fall away from the playoff picture as they sit ninth in the Eastern Conference with 35 points, a full seven points back of Swift Current in eighth. The Rebels have a record of 15-21-3-2 on the year, and they have lost their last ten games in a row with two losses in overtime.

The Rebels have scored a league worst 102 goals so far this season while allowing 155 this year, good for an average of 2.5 goals per game through 41 games.

The powerplay has not helped the Rebels this year either, sitting last in the league at 14.1 per cent. Penalty killing has been a different story with a 76.2 per cent success rate on the year.

There are two players tied at the top of the Rebels scoring race, both Jaxon Fuder and the former Swift Current Bronco Ty Coupland both have 9G-13A-22P on the year. Sitting alone in second is Matthew Gard with 9G-12A-21P, and finally Ollie Josephson has 8G-11A-19P on the year.

In goal, Chase Wutzke’s save percentage of 0.898 does not tell you just how good his play has been. Through 36 games, he has a record of 12-18-2-1 on the year. As for their backups, they have two rookies that have split time. Peyton Shore has appeared in four games this year but is credited one win and one loss, boasting a 0.875 save percentage. Matthew Kondro has been on the bench the last three games for the Rebels, but he’s only hit the ice for one period with a save percentage at 0.833.

The Raiders are at home on Friday night against the Swift Current Broncos starting at 7:00 p.m., and then again at home Saturday against the Red Deer Rebels at the same time. You can catch all the action on 900 CKBI starting with the pregame show at 6:30 p.m.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com

by Nick Nielsen

Weekend preview: Raiders poised to climb standings with weekend at home

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