Raiders playoffs
Tuesday’s playoff result between the Grande Peace Storm and Southside Athletic Club determined the opponent for the St. Albert Nektar Raiders in the north division semifinal in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League.The score from Grande Prairie was unavailable at press time.
The Raiders will play the Canadian Athletic Club (15-12-7) if the Storm (17-13-4) wins and a Storm loss would mean the Southside (13-9-2) is Thursday’s visitor at 7 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena.
The rest of the best-of-five schedule was to be finalized after Tuesday’s outcome but game two is set for Bill Hunter Arena.
The Raiders (19-11-4) and Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (19-13-2) received first-round byes in the opening best-of-five series as the top two teams in north standings.
The division pennant was the first for the Raiders since 2007 at 17-11-8.
The 2010 Raiders also tied for first at 23-6-6 as the second playoff seed in the north.
The 2019 Mac’s Cup champions closed out the regular season with seven wins in 10 games.
Eric Perneel finished 10th in the AMHL scoring race with 38 points with a team-high 21 goals, including six on the power play.
Captain Erik Boers ranked second on the Raiders with 15 goals and 28 points.
Sabres playoffs
The playoffs start tonight for the St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League.Faceoff is 8 p.m. against the KC Squires at Millwoods Arena.
Game two in the best-of-three nitro north division semifinal is 7:45 p.m. Friday at Troy Murray Arena.
Game three, if needed, is 5:45 p.m. Saturday at Castledowns Arena.
KC (20-9-4) placed first in the nitro standing and the Sabres (13-15-5) finished tied for third with the SSAC Southgate Lions (12-14-7).
The winner plays the Sherwood Park Flyers (17-15-1) or SSAC in the best-of-three division final.
Head to head against KC, the Sabres won the last two tilts 4-3 Dec. 3 and 3-1 Nov. 28 after two 4-3 defeats 10 days apart in early October.
The 2018 AMBHL provincial finalists ended the regular season last weekend with losses of 6-1 to the host Lloydminster Bobcats (21-6-6) and 4-3 to SSAC in St. Albert.
Liam Cochrane was the highest-scoring Sabre this season with 44 points and shared the team lead in goals with Zakk Makeiff at 19 apiece while captain Levi Fesyk posted the most assists with 27.
