By Jeff D'Andrea

Raiders dig themselves a 3-0 hole against Oil Kings, lose 4-1

Sep 29, 2011 | 12:15 AM

Just like their 0-3 beginning to the season, the Raiders have started all three of their games slowly with poor first periods showings.

Their worst start to game came Wednesday at the Art Hauser Centre in a 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings (1-0-1-0), in which the visiting Oil Kings outscored the Raiders 3-0 in the first period and led in shots 18-4.

In their three first periods this season, the Raiders have surrendered the first goal in each, have been outscored by a total of 5-2 and outshot 55-26.

“It’s been three games in a row, our first period’s been a friggin’ disaster,” said Bruno Campese, Raiders head coach and general manager. “The next 40 (minutes), we come out and play pretty well, (but) we are obviously not ready to play.

Raiders co-captain Mark McNeill said a big factor to the team’s slow start is simply getting out-willed and out-competed for the puck.

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“The starts have kind of got to us the last couple games here, getting outworked in battles and not winning races,” said McNeill.

On the other hand, the Oil Kings came out to a flying start and we lead by offensively by two rookie defencemen in Slovakian Martin Gernat, who scored team’s first goal and added an assist, and Ashton Sautner, who assisted on both goals by Dylan Wruck and Rhett Rachinski in the first period.

“We just kept it simple and stuck to our game plan,” said Sautner, 17, who has three points in his first two career WHL games. “We knew coming into this rink, it would be a smaller rink. We did what we were told and it worked out good.”

Michael St. Croix scored the Oil Kings’ fourth goal of the game in the third, before Raiders centreman Justin Maylan scored the lone Raiders goal on the powerplay midway through the third.

Maylan’s marker is the Raiders’ first and only goal scored with the man-advantage in 14 tries this season, amounting for 7.1 per cent efficiency.

After Saturday’s game against the Blades, where the Raiders surrendered two shorthanded goals and were 0-4 on the powerplay, they sported a brand new PP look Wednesday. McNeill took the draw, and then later shifted back on the point to join defenceman Antoine Corbin, up front, Maylan played alongside Brandon Herrod and Jonas Knutsen.

That newly-formed top unit gelled at times, but Campese said there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“I certainly thought it was better (Wednesday),” said Campese. “I thought that unit of five did a real good job initially of moving pucks around and competing for the puck. I think later in the game, we had some difficulties but for the most part, I thought it was a little bit better.

“It’s still nowhere where it needs to be, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.”

Although both Campese and McNeill said they were a little happier with the efforts in the final fourty minutes of the game, outshooting Edmonton 27-22 in that span and tying 1-1, there are still room for improvements.

McNeill said the team has to capitalize on their chances as the team generated some good scoring opportunities in the final two periods, but hit the post, missed the net or were foiled by a sharp Laurent Brossoit, who stopped 30 of 31 shots in goal for the Oil Kings.

“(Our effort) kind of changed in the second and third, but we couldn’t bury any chances,” said McNeill.

“It’s something we're going to have to work on in practice tomorrow and try and stay positive heading into the weekend here.

“It starts in practice. It’s guys getting their confidence back and getting into the groove in things and it starts in practice, getting out there and shooting on the goalies like it’s a real game.”

The Raiders will hit the road and play the Moose Warriors (1-1) Friday for their next game at their new rink, Mosaic Place.

McNeill and the rest of the Raiders know they cannot afford to fall behind the eight-ball early in the first.

“Going into that game, we’re going to definitely have to be ready for the drop of the puck, there’s no way we can wait for the second or the third, we gotta be ready to go right from the drop,” said McNeill.

jdandrea@panow.com