The Raiders celebrate after Matyas Man scored his first goal as a Raider against the Brandon Wheat Kings earlier this season. (Mark Peterson/Prince Albert Raiders)

By Nick Nielsen

Top of the Power Rankings

Raiders early contenders for top team in the WHL

Dec 2, 2025 | 5:00 PM

Before the start of the WHL season, there was a lot of excitement in Prince Albert surrounding the Raiders after they won their first playoff series since the 2019 championship run. Now entering the final month of 2025, the Raiders are third place in the league behind Everett and Edmonton, and the team still has at least three games in hand over the two ahead of them.

The Raiders had a favourable schedule to start the year, with nine of their first 13 games of the season on home ice. In that time, the Raiders were 10-0-3 (W-L-OTL) with the three losses coming at the hands of Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary.

For comparison sake, Saskatoon had a similar start to the season at 9-3-0 through their first 12 games, many of which were at home. But then they went on their U.S. road swing, where they went 1-3-2 and have been playing catch-up ever since. The Raiders, on the other hand, went into their U.S. road trip with an extra stop in Lethbridge, and they’d put up a 5-1-1 record, which included handing the league-leading Everett Silvertips their second regulation loss of the season.

Since then, the WHL Power Rankings has consistently had the Raiders among the top teams.

During the CHL U.S. Prospects Challenge, players from Team CHL, including Prince Albert Raiders assistant captain Daxon Rudolph, compiled the power rankings for that week. Rudolph said it didn’t take much convincing to get his team into the top spot.

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“I thought it would be tougher, but honestly, it wasn’t too bad,” Rudolph said with a laugh. “It was kind of a consensus decision, which is nice and just shows to the work we’re putting in here in PA and the type of team we have.”

For head coach Ryan McDonald, being one of the top clubs in the league is due in part to his team’s dedication to the small details of the game, both on and off the ice.

“What we’re so excited about, and proud about our group, is the habits of success and how they’ve fallen in love with the details, the habits that bring success. They have the consistency to execute those day in and day out, and whether it’s in the video room, on the ice in practice, or ultimately out on the ice in a game…that’s a true testament to our dressing room. We have a dressing room that’s extremely close, they’re extremely hardworking.”

And it appears each team member has been pulling their weight. Offensively, the Raiders don’t have one player sitting in the top 50 in league scoring; however, they do have 12 players with at least 10 points each already this season. Only the Everett Silvertips, Medicine Hat Tigers, Moose Jaw Warriors, Portland Winterhawks, and Saskatoon Blades have 12 players over that 10-point mark, but all five of those teams have played more games than the Raiders.

On the defensive side of things, the Raiders have the best goals against average in the entire WHL at 2.43. The closest team to that number has been the Everett Silvertips at 2.64 goals against per game.

Another contributing factor to the Raiders success so far has been their discipline. The Raiders have given up the second least amount of penalty minutes in the league at 238, and have had the least penalty kills in the league at only 75.

Finally, on the back end, the pairing of the returning Dimitri Fortin and European draft pick Michal Orsulak has proven to be one of the strongest in the league. Orsulak sits top five in the league in save percentage at 0.919, leads the league in shutouts with two, and is the only goaltender in the league with less than two goals against per game at 1.99. Fortin’s numbers have been a little more sporadic, but he also has a shutout on the year, made a career-high 40 saves in an overtime win against Seattle this year, and most recently, played one of the best games of his career in a 3-2 win over Brandon.

If the U.S. road swing results weren’t enough to convince doubters on how good the Raiders are this year, the team has two big stretches coming up to prove themselves. They’ll look for revenge against the Medicine Hat Tigers on Wednesday. On Friday, the Raiders will take on Calgary, followed by Red Deer on Saturday and Edmonton on Sunday.

The following week, the Raiders will head to Swift Current on Friday, then back home against Lethbridge on Saturday, and back on the road to Saskatoon on Sunday.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com