Riley the Raider fires up the crowd at centre ice before Game 1 of the best-of-seven playoff series between the Raiders and Rebels, Friday at the Art Hauser Centre. Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff

By Jeff D'Andrea

We're talkin' about playoffs

Raiders and Rebels; Game 2 preview

Mar 23, 2019 | 2:01 PM

The Prince Albert Raiders kicked off the best-of-seven series against the Red Deer Rebels with a 3-0 victory Friday at the Art Hauser Centre. The Raiders will be looking to taking a stranglehold lead in the series, but they will be expecting a better Rebels team on Saturday, 7 p.m. at the Hauser for Game 2.

Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid said his team may have had a little anxious energy to start Game 1, he doesn’t want them to get too comfortable either against what should be a hungry Rebels team.

“I think we’ll probably be a little more settled with our nerves, but we don’t want our guys to be over-settled and start battling less. Because Red Deer, the thing they do every game is compete,” Habscheid said. “From what we can gather, they think they can compete harder. So we have to up our game and keep making good decisions and competing to being involved.”

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In shutting out the Rebels on Friday, the Raiders also were able to keep Rebels scoring star Brandon Hagel off the scoresheet. That’s been proven difficult for other teams, as Hagel registered at least one point in 80.3 per cent of games he played in this season. He finished with 102, tied for fourth best in the WHL and ended the regular season with 5 game scoring streak (3 goals, 7 assists, 10 points)

He’s also paired with the Rebels other top scoring threats in captain Reese Johnson and Cameron Hausinger. On Friday, they saw a heavy douse of Sean Montgomery, Parker Kelly and Justin Nachbaur.

“They’re a good, skilled line. Hagel has 100 points, so we respect them,” Kelly said. “It’s a good, competitive battle. We’re looking to keep shutting them down and hopefully we’ll win the series.”

Goals on Goals

Saturday’s 3-0 victory to the Raiders was the first game this season between the Raiders and Rebels that was not decided by just one goal. The Rebels defeated the Raiders 4-3 on Oct. 6, before the Raiders beat the Rebels 2-1 on Oct. 13, 4-3 on Nov. 27 and 2-1 in a shootout on March 1.

Rare playoff matchup

This is only the second meeting between the Raiders and Rebels since the 1996 playoffs. The only other time the two teams met in the internet era was back in 2013. The Rebels swept the Raiders that season in four games.

Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW