By Jeff D'Andrea

Raiders give up two shorties to Blades, lose 5-3 in home opener

Sep 24, 2011 | 11:37 PM

The Prince Albert Raiders special teams weren’t too special at the 900 CKBI Raider Home Opener Saturday against the Saskatoon Blades in the Raiders’ 5-3 loss in front of an Art Hauser crowd of 2,612.

The Raiders gave up two goals on six penalty kills and were 0-4 with the man-advantage, but what hurt the most is that the Raiders gave up two shorthanded goals in the game.

Blades forward Josh Nicholls scored with a man-down on a breakaway four minutes into the game. The puck was bouncing slightly when it came up the point to Raiders defenceman James Bettauer and Nicholls pounced on him, winning the puck on the wall and was off to the races.

The other Blades’ shorthanded goal was scored by Jesse Paradis 1:18 into the third to give the Blades a 4-3 lead. Paradis stripped Justin Maylan of the puck in the neutral zone before walking in.

Nicholls said those two goals show just how aggressive the Blades PK units are, and it’s paid off in their first two games.

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“We definitely take a lot of pride in our penalty kill and I think one of the keys to that is pounding the puck and putting pressure on the guys and over the last two nights, we’ve definitely done that,” said Nicholls.

Raiders general manager and head coach Bruno Campese was visibly disappointed with his powerplay units’ inabilities to deal with the Blades’ puck pursuit.

“It’s frustrating,” said Campese as he lowered his gaze and shook his head. “We have to execute and the guys responsible on the powerplay need to do a better job. You should be giving up three shorthanded goals in a 72 game season, never mind two games to start the season. It’s definitely something we have to work at.

What makes that even more disappointing is how well the Raiders played 5-on-5 . Campese estimates the Raiders doubled the Blades in shots, 24-12 in even strength situations.

Raiders co-captain Brandon Herrod said his team controlled the play for the majority of the contest, especially midway through the second period where the Raiders had sustained and frantic pressure on Blades goaltender Andrey Makarov.

“I thought for the most of the game we dominated, especially in the second period, we should have had a goal there, we had them on their heels for a good five minutes—our specialty teams, our powerplay did the exact opposite, I guess,” said Herrod, who was the game’s second star with two assists. “We gave up some shorthanded goals which isn’t very acceptable.”

After Nicholl’s first period shorty, the Raiders scored three goals in a row. Todd Fiddler scored the first goal in the Art Hauser Centre for the Raiders at the 11-minute mark in the first period, then defenceman James Bettauer followed suit less than a minute later. T.J. Constant scored two minutes into the second period to take a 3-1 lead.

The Blades ended the game with four unanswered goals with powerplay markers from Matej Stransky and Lukas Sutter to tie the game heading into the third, before Paradis’ shorthanded goal and Jake Trask’s insurance policy late in the third.

Raiders goaltender Williams stopped 27 of 32 incoming shots, including 18 saves in the first period alone. Makarov stopped 33 of 36.

The Raiders (0-2) will host the Edmonton Oil Kings (0-0) Wednesday at the Art Hauser Centre for their next game.

jdandrea@panow.com