It’s looking like 1990 for the team of destiny in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League.
The last provincial championship was 19 years ago for the St. Albert Nektar Raiders, 25-13-4 overall as the top north division team in the regular season and playoffs entering the best-of-five final against the Calgary Buffaloes this weekend.
“We’ve showed that we’re a winning hockey team and we need to continue to do that,” said Brad Adams, a sizable right winger with the 2019 Mac’s Cup champions. “It’s an unreal feeling to be young hockey players like us and having so much success. It’s very awesome. We just need to keep pushing and hopefully good things keep coming.”
Friday’s score in the series opener in Calgary was unavailable at press time.
Game two is 3 p.m. Sunday at Akinsdale Arena and game three is 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Cardel Rec South Arena.
If required, game four is 7 p.m. Thursday at Akinsdale and game five is 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Cardel.
The winner hosts the Pacific Region best-of-three series April 5 to 7 against the B.C. champion for a berth at the Telus Cup, April 22 to 28 at Thunder Bay, Ont.
The last provincial final for the Raiders was 2012 and assistant coach Brady Bakke was the captain for the championship-winning Red Deer Rebels, the Telus Cup gold medallists.
The Buffaloes (24-7-3, 144 GF/74 GA) finished tied with the defending champion Lethbridge Hurricanes (25-8-1) for first place in the south and during their 6-2 (29 GF/11 GA) playoff run needed five games to get past the fifth-place Calgary Royals (18-13-3) in the division final.
“They’re a good hockey club, the same as us. It’s two great hockey teams battling for a league championship that’s for sure,” Adams said.
The Raiders – 19-11-4 (116 GF/92 GA) in league play and 6-2 (28 GF/14 GA) in the playoffs after the come-from-behind series thriller against the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (19-13-2) in the north final – suffered a 6-2 loss to the Buffaloes on Nov. 3 during the AMHL Showcase Weekend at Go Auto Arena and the teams settled for a 2-2 draw Nov. 25 in Calgary.
“They’re more of a skilled, fast team but they don’t like to be hit so it’s going to be like how we switched it up against Fort Sask. The first two games (against the Rangers) we weren’t too physical and they’re a skilled team and we’re more of chips and bunts as we call it. When we work together more is when we play our best. It’s when we wear teams down and then they can’t keep up with us anymore. It’s because we’re just so relentless and that’s how we’re going to need to play against the Buffs to beat them,” said assistant captain Mathew Rathbone.
The Raiders also knocked off the Buffaloes at the Mac’s Cup with one of the strangest and timely goals of the season. Needing a victory in the last pool three game for a berth in the quarter-finals, Rathbone’s bank shot off the glass resulted in the 4-3 winner by Kye Buchanan with 49 seconds remaining.
“I was at the red line and I was trying to dump it in so I just shot it. I didn’t even see until the video afterwards but it hit one of the metal things on the glass so their goalie (Jonah Chambers) went behind the net because it looked like it was going behind the net and then all of a sudden it popped out luckily right to the middle,” Rathbone said. “It was kind of like what coach (Jack Redlick) said, ‘It’s like there was an assist from Logan Hunter.’”
Hunter, a Raider with the 2016-17 team with Redlick as the head coach, was among the 16 individuals on the Humboldt Broncos’ bus that included St. Albert Raiders Hockey Club alumni players’ Conner Lukan, Jaxon Joseph and Stephen Wack who were killed in the April 6 collision with a semi-trailer unit transporting peat moss as the Broncos were headed to Nipawin for game five in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoff series against the Hawks.
The Raiders willed themselves into position to beat the Buffaloes at the Mac’s Cup as Mathieu Gautier’s second power-play goal of the third period knotted it at three while netminder Evan Fradette, the tournament MVP, racked up 50 saves.
The first St. Albert male team to win the Mac’s – the midget AAA St. Albert Kal-Tire Slash were the 2009 female division champions – also overcame several obstacles in the playoff round with the same diligence displayed in defeating the Rangers after dropping the first two games in overtime.
“It was a lot of adversity and our team is used to dealing with adversity,” Rathbone said of turning the tables on the Rangers. “We went for our team dinner and we’ve done it this season when we’ve went down. We go out and spend the day with the boys after practice and the coach usually makes it a pretty smooth practice for us to get our confidence back just so we feel good and that’s kind of how our team is feeling right now. We’re pretty confident. We know we can beat the Buffs.”
The Raiders were down but never out against the Rangers.
“It sucks going down 0-2 in a series but there was no giving up. We pushed our way through and came out on top,” Adams said.
Game one in St. Albert was decided at 2:55 into sudden death as the Rangers cashed in their second power-play goal of the night and game two in Fort Saskatchewan ended at 3:44 in the third extra frame and the Raiders on the penalty kill for the second time in OT.
The Raiders cued the comeback with the 3-1 decision in St. Albert while outshooting the visitors 45-30.
“In both games they won in overtime we couldn’t get a bounce it seemed but the turning point was just getting that home win,” Adams said.
In game four in Fort Saskatchewan, shortly after a time out, Erik (Captain Clutch) Boers slotted the equalizer with 1:36 to play and Fradette on the bench for the extra attacker and in OT Rathbone was initially credited with the winner on the power play but it was Adams who sealed the deal at 3-2 at 8:06 in the second extra frame.
“They shot it down but one of our defence, I think it was Taige (Harding), blocked it kind of in our blueline area so then he moved it to (Tyson) Kowaluk and he had some speed and I came back with some speed, too. Kowaluk went up to the right side and the Fort Sask four players drifted towards him so it left me wide open on the left side so then Kowaluk passed it over and I drove in and somewhere near the crease the defence tripped me and the rebound was right there for Brad to put it in,” said Rathbone, 18, a Grade 12 student at St. Peter the Apostle High School.
Rathbone’s assist on the OT winner was his fifth point in seven playoff games as the left-winger on a line with Ethan Whillans and assistant captain Carson Henry and during the regular season the Spruce Grove resident was 7-15-22 in 30 games.
Adams, 18, provided a somewhat different version of his third goal and sixth point of the playoffs after going 8-9-17 in 31 league games.
“They iced the puck down and Rathbone just went and picked it up and came down on the two defencemen. I was just behind him and he tried to put it through the defencemen and the puck bounced out to me and I whacked it home,” said the Grade 12 Mayerthorpe High School student.
With the Rangers reeling, the Raiders never looked back as Gautier, Whillans, Eric Perneel and Brady Nicholas potted goals on 31 shots while Fradette (6-2, 1.57 GAA) was tested 27 times in Sunday’s 4-0 deciding game in St. Albert.
“It was amazing. It was something else, that’s for sure. We were very excited (after game four) and it was an away win, too,” Adams said. “To get that win was huge, especially coming back home, and we finished it off.”
