With three games remaining before the playoffs, the St. Albert Raiders are battling the Southside Athletic Club for top spot in the north standings.
Tied at 40 points apiece, Southside (19-8-2) has two games in hand on the Raiders (18-9-4).
While first place is what a team works for in the regular season, head coach Sandro Pisani is more concerned with how the Raiders will perform in the midget AAA playoffs.
“We finished tied for first last year [with the Lloydminster Bobcats at 23-6-6] and it didn’t make a difference to us. At the end of the day we’re only worried about getting our game towards where it needs to be and we got three games to do that,” said Pisani.
Since returning from an unsuccessful bid at the Mac’s tournament in Calgary, the Raiders finished January with a below-average record of 2-3-1. Pisani believes the recent play could be partially attributed to stress from recent high school exams.
“Sometimes the energy and enthusiasm and the focus isn’t quite where it needs to be when the players are going through those types of things,” he said.
Last month the Raiders’ goals per game suffered a near half drop in production.
“We’ve kind of got away from the things that have made us successful. We’re not attacking off the rush anymore and we’re not getting enough pucks to the net. We’re not committed to doing the little things as much as we were earlier on in the year,” said Pisani.
If the Raiders recommit to the system that was laid out when the season started, Pisani is confident they will be a hard opponent to knock out of the playoffs.
“We have to make sure to pay attention to the details in our game and we need to continue to push the pace of the game in transaction,” he said. “If we can do those types of things, when we do spend time in our end of the rink, we’ll be OK.”
The Raiders play their final home game before the playoffs Sunday at 2:30 p.m. against the Calgary Buffaloes (16-10-4).
They close out the league schedule next weekend on the road against the Calgary Northstars (14-11-6) and the south division-leading Red Deer Rebels (22-5-3).
ICE CHIPS: The north division all-star team will play Team Alberta’s U16 Canada Winter Games team Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Bill Hunter Arena.
Raiders’ centre Nelson Gadoury of Calahoo is on the U16 roster.
The north all-star line-up will include goalie Tanner Kovacs (10-5-4, 2.06 GAA) and forwards Jayden Hart (18-20-38 in 31 games) and Brady Goebel (16-10-26 in 30 games) of the Raiders. Pisani and his assistant, Geoff Giacobbo, are coaching the team.
