Raiders forward Brett Leason scored his first goal of the series to start Game 4. Lucas Chudleigh/Apollo Multimedia

By Jeff D'Andrea

Best of 3

‘The Raiders are back’

Apr 24, 2019 | 10:23 PM

EDMONTON— To refocus his team after a flat 5-1 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings on Game 3, Prince Albert Raiders’ head coach Marc Habscheid didn’t redecorate the visiting dressing room at Rogers Place. He didn’t hurl some curse words or give an impassioned speech, either.

All he did was hand Tuesday night’s game tape to his team and let the players sort the feedback and adjustments out themselves.

“We just let them watch last night’s game this morning after breakfast and just asked them after at the pre-game meal what they thought,” Habscheid said. “They’re smart. So they just had enough. The Raiders are back.”

That seemed to do the trick as the Raiders avoided going down three games to one in the WHL Eastern Conference Finals and rebounded with a 2-1 victory over the Oil Kings in Game 4.

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Game 5 will be at the Art Hauser Centre on Friday at 7 p.m., and the now-necessary Game 6 is on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

In the last two games, Habscheid said in interviews that he wanted his best players to be his best players. He got his wish as Brett Leason and Noah Gregor both scored for the Raiders and led upfront.

Leason opened the scoring 13 minutes into the second period, which was his first goal and first point of the series, despite having 12 points in the first two rounds and leading the Raiders in regular season points with 89. But Leason had a big smile on his face as he looked up at the jumbotron at Rogers Place to look at the replay of his goal.

“It meant a lot,” Leason said. “I was always getting the chances, but ran into a hot goalie and couldn’t get the bounces. Today, I finally was able to get one and it happened to be a big goal and get this team some momentum and kept going from there.”

One common theme on both of the Raiders’ goals was their intensity on the forecheck. Dante Hannoun’s forecheck caused a turnover, allowing Leason easy access to the puck and a good chance on goal.

On Gregor’s goal to start the third period, there was a big forecheck as well. That resulted in Ozzy Wiesblatt finding Gregor from the end-boards with a blind, back-handed pass.

“I thought we had the first guy in pretty hard last night, but we didn’t have that second layer and that second guy helping out,” Gregor said on the Raiders’ forecheck. “On our two goals, we had the second guy and he was able to find a guy in the slot and he was able to bury.”

The Oil Kings made it close with 6:06 left as Wyatt McLeod took advantage of a Raiders’ turnover, but that’s as close as they would come.

“I don’t think we played our best game tonight, but again, I think they brought their best game of the series so far,” Oil Kings head coach Brad Lauer said. “They had a little bit more urgency in their game than we did — in that sense, that’s the outcome of the game.”

Scoring Summary

First Period

No scoring.

Second Period

1-0, Raiders, Brett Leason (unassisted), 13:01

Third Period

2-0, Raiders, Noah Gregor from Ozzy Wiesblatt and Sergei Sapego, 2:13

2-1, Oil Kings, Wyatt McLeod from Quinn Benjafield, 13:54

Game 5

Game 5 will be Friday at the Art Hauser Centre, 7 p.m. The now-necessary Game 6 will be back at Rogers Place on Sunday at 2 p.m.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW