Raiders Head Coach Jeff Truitt has been away from the team since December 18 and the start of the Christmas break. (Mark Peterson/Prince Albert Raiders)

By Nick Nielsen

Raiders Head Coach Truitt returns after month away from team

Jan 28, 2025 | 2:37 PM

Before the Christmas break, the Prince Albert Raiders finished the first half of the season in Calgary where they sent their players home with their families and Head Coach Jeff Truitt would head to his home in Red Deer to spend time with his family. While at home, an emergency eye surgery extended Truitt’s break, keeping him away for almost the entire month of January and a total of 15 games with the team.

Now, ahead of Wednesday’s home game against the Regina Pats, Truitt is back in Prince Albert and ready to stand behind his team for the first time in 41 days.

“It kind of drove me crazy because you’re playing every shift with these guys no matter if you’re on the bench or watching from afar. You get impatient and you want to be in the heat of the battle with who are working hard. You want to be a part of it and you can’t be a part of it, but you sure look forward to coming back and being a part of it now. It feels good.”

In Truitt’s absence, the Raiders went 9-4-0-1 in the 15 games played between December 28 and January 26 and they are now sitting on a seven game point streak.

While he was at home, Truitt was still a large part of coaching this team while having daily phone calls with his coaching staff. With the Raiders earning the top spot in the East Division in Truitt’s absence, he said that what Interim Head Coach Ryan McDonald, Assistant Coach Connor Yawney, and the rest of the Hockey Operations staff for the Raiders were able to accomplish is a testament to how strong this staff is.

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“We’re a team. With a coaching staff, you have to do different things to prepare the team and then you have the team that has to go an execute it, but we’re one big team. If somebody goes down, somebody steps in and take control. Both Ryan and Connor, Mark Odnokon, Doan Smith, everybody did a tremendous job in keeping the wheels turning in a very important time. You’re looking to get on some momentum once you return from Christmas and they certainly did, and it’s good to see the end result with the wins and the success that we’ve had. We just want to make sure that continues.”

Since his coaching career began in 1993 with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Truitt couldn’t recall the last time he’s missed a game. Still, while Truitt hopes to never have a situation like this again, it has helped him find a new perspective with his team watching them through a computer screen rather than from on the bench.

“It certainly was different. I haven’t missed a game in many, many years and this was a tough one. Outside of being a player and having knee surgeries and things like that where you can rehab and see some improvement, this is a little bit different where you’re isolated and just watching. It gives you a different perspective, but it still gives you a perspective on what our strengths are, and what our strengths aren’t.”

This past weekend, the Raiders picked up five out of a possible six points with two wins over the Saskatoon Blades to take the top spot in the East Division. While the Raiders have had a lot of success lately, Truitt said this is not the time for the team to be resting on their laurels.

“We’re in a dog fight, and we’re going to be in a dog fight right to the end of it, but the team is confident, but also they know we’ve got a ways to go here to improve our game. So we kind of bring things together with Ryan and Connor about what has worked in tight, but then I can bring in perspective about what I saw on the TV screen for the games that I was away, and then you bring it together and it just never felt like we left each other because the communication is so good that way.”

Another oddity out of the situation surrounds the trade deadline. Truitt’s absence from the team saw the trade deadline come and go, meaning four players that played the last game Truitt coached have left (Macias, Moroz, Pederson, and Palmarin) to other organizations while another four are now staples on the team (Kostiuk, Burrett, Fabrizi, and Kovacevic).

Truitt did get to meet the new faces on the team in person when the Raiders played in Red Deer at the end of the most recent Alberta road swing, but he’s excited to see these guys play and practice in person.

“It was a game day and you didn’t want to take them off their schedule, but now getting back here in the last couple of days, I’ve been able to sit down with them after the weekend and really get to know them and they can get to know me. Tremendous young men, tremendous competitors that have embraced what we do here, and that’s the biggest hurdle. You get traded, you get moved, it’s a different team, how do they accept what’s going on around here? It’s been seamless, these guys have been tremendous and all great young men and it’s going to be a pleasure walking into a real intense time from here on in and have them contribute.”

With the Raiders recent success, Truitt has a lot of pride for the coaching staff around him, and he can’t wait to get back in the swing of things with this group.

“Ryan and Connor deserve a lot of credit, the players deserve a lot of credit, at the beginning it was probably a bit of a different atmosphere, but they succeeded through that and kudos to them because that just shows you the kind of team we have.”

The Raiders play their next two games in a row at home, Wednesday night against the Regina Pats, and Saturday when they host the Wenatchee Wild.