By Jeff D'Andrea

Snipin’ Sean Montgomery’s wish tweet comes true

Feb 2, 2015 | 3:51 PM

Sean Montgomery’s New Year’s resolution was short, sweet and simple.

“All I want for 2015 is a goal” the 16-year-old rookie of the Prince Albert Raiders tweeted on New Year’s Eve as he hoped to finally tuck one home.

After playing his first 44 games without finding the back of the net, Montgomery finally got his wish — three times.

Montgomery has now scored a goal in each of his last three games. That’s more than other Raider in that span with the exception of leading scorer Reid Gardiner, who also has three.

“It probably had a little bit to do with his New Year’s resolution on Twitter,” said Raiders goaltender Rylan Parenteau. “I’ve definitely happy for him. He’s been impressive in the last three games.”

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When he was reminded of his tweet, Montgomery’s bashful smile stretched as his cheeks reddened.

But he looks a lot less shy on the ice in recent games, as he’s moved up the lineup to reflect his recently found scoring touch.

After Jayden Hart went down to an injury during Friday’s 10-1 loss to the Calgary Hitmen, Montgomery was moved up to play alongside Jordan Tkatch and Simon Stransky for Saturday’s 6-5 shootout win over the Red Deer Rebels. Montgomery skated alongside Tkatch and Stransky during Monday’s practice.

“I guess just gaining a little confidence helped a lot,” said Montgomery. “Getting one led to a few more, so that’s good.”

Montgomery’s first WHL career goal turned out to the game winner in Wednesday’s 6-1 ‘Bash the Blades’ win over the Saskatoon Blades.

His wrist shot from the top of the left circle snuck underneath the glove of Blades goaltender Nik Amundrud so discretely, Montgomery wasn’t initially aware he scored. Raiders assistant captain Reid Gardiner, who had just came on the ice during a change, started celebrating and gave it away.

“I didn’t even realize it went in until I heard Gardiner yelling,” said Montgomery. “Then I was just really excited—just speechless. I couldn’t really describe it.”

Even though Montgomery hadn’t always been rewarded with goals and points throughout the year, Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid has been very high on Montgomery’s since taking over the head coaching duties on Nov. 1. Habscheid even went as far as comparing Montgomery to Boston Bruins centre Patrice Bergeron, widely regarded as one of the best two-way centremen currently in the game.

“I kinda bug him sometimes, because he looks like Patrice Bergeron,” said Habscheid. “I was fortunate enough to coach (Bergeron) a couple times, in Boston and the world championships, and (Montgomery) reminds me a lot of Patrice Bergeron.

“He’s strong, he doesn’t say much but he’s reliable defensively. He’s strong on the puck. He doesn’t show it, but he’s very ferocious in terms of having a heavy stick and competing in the right things and he’s very smart, he makes a lot of smart plays. He never gets in trouble too much and now he’s getting rewarded in scoring, he’s the hottest scorer in the Western Hockey League right now. We’re pretty happy for him.”

Overcoming adversity

Although neither of their weekend games were works of art, Habscheid was ecstatic with the Raiders’ resiliency. One night after Friday’s 10-1 blowout loss to the Calgary Hitmen, the Raiders travelled to Red Deer the next night to face the Rebels without overager scorer Jayden Hart (injured) and the suspended Mackenze Stewart. The Raiders responded anyway with a 6-5 shootout win over the Red Deer Rebels.

Throughout the weekend, Habscheid emphasized that the team believe in themselves, and it worked out to their benefit against a fine Red Deer club.

“If you do that, a team can overcome a lot of things,” said Habscheid. “The guys really rallied around that and responded. Even in the third period, we gave up three goals but we bended—we didn’t break. We ended up with the two points.

“You look for galvanizing times and hopefully that was a galvanizing time for our group because we overcame a lot of adversity. We played against a very good team in their building, after what happened the night before.”

Shut off the T.V.

The Raiders have lost all five televised games they’ve played this year, including the 10-1 drubbing in Calgary on Friday live on Shaw, and the 3-0 loss to the Saskatoon Blades on Jan. 25 was shown on Sportsnet.

They’ve been outscored 26-6 in the five television losses this year.

“Hopefully we don’t play anymore TV games, I’ve had enough of that,” said Habscheid. “We got our lunch fed to us in Calgary, sometimes those games happen.”

The Raiders have only one more televised game and it won’t get any easier. They’ll play the Brandon Wheat Kings Feb. 20, the top-ranked team of the WHL Eastern Conference, at the Art Hauser Centre and live on Shaw.

South Sask trip

The Raiders will head down south Tuesday and Wednesday to play two divisional rivals, the Regina Pats and the Moose Jaw Warriors.

After Wednesday, the Raiders will play four of their next five games at home, starting Friday against the Swift Current Broncos and Saturday against the Calgary Hitmen.

The Raiders are chasing the Broncos for the third-spot of the WHL East Division to get into the playoffs. They are eight points back of the Broncos, but play them five more times this season.

jdandrea@panow.com

On Twitter: @jeff_dandrea