Brayden Watts can’t stop scoring goals. Jeff D’Andrea/paNOW Staff

By Jeff D'Andrea

Hot Watts

Watts the deal with Brayden?! He scores another pair in big revenge win over Wheat Kings

Mar 7, 2020 | 10:35 PM

Brayden Watts is starting to run out of goal celebrations.

For the third straight game, Watts scored a pair of goals to help his Prince Albert Raiders to a 4-2 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings Saturday at Westoba Place.

Just to repeat, Watts has six goals and eight points in his last three games.

Watts put the Raiders up 2-1 on the power early in the second period.

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Then Watts got the insurance marker in the third period, scoring his 29^th goal on the season.

“He’s playing at another level right now, which you would expect. That’s why he’s here,” said Raiders assistant coach Jeff Truitt on Watts, who arrived after the opening weekend of the season from the Vancouver Giants. “He went all the way to the finals last year. He knows the grind, he knows the expectations of a winning club. He’s contributing an awful lot here, lately.”

More importantly than that, the victory gives the Raiders a six-point lead over the Wheat Kings for first place in the WHL East Division race. The Raiders are now up to 82 points on a 36-17-6-4 record, compared to the Wheat Kings who are on 76 points with a 35-22-4-2 record. Both clubs have five games remaining.

The Raiders weren’t happy at all with Friday’s 3-2 overtime defeat to the Wheat Kings on home ice. Habscheid and Watts himself said the Raiders didn’t work nearly hard enough to win. Truitt said on Saturday, effort wasn’t an issue at all.

“I thought here tonight, we were on the puck, we were taking the body and we got a lot of loose pucks and did some good things with it,” Truitt said. “It goes to show you, work ethic has to be there 100 per cent of the time.”

The entire team seemed to be engaged. Rookie forward Tyson Laventure showed that early on in the game. After blocking a hard shot from Vincent Iorio, Laventure fell to the ice from the blow of the shot. He rose to his feet after a few seconds, only to block another shot from Iorio later that shift.

“He didn’t like it. He was on the ground but he found the courage to get up and bang, it hits him again. That’s great. You need that this time of year,” Truitt said. “You need the discipline to block shot or maybe take a bump. Power plays and penalty kills are so key, you can change the tide at any point of the game.”

Raiders goaltender Max Paddock made 28 saves on 30 shots. Jiri Patera had 18 saves on 22 shots for the Wheat Kings.

Scoring Summary

First Period

1-0, Wheat Kings, Ben McCartney from Luka Burzan and Ridly Greig (power play), 15:56

1-1, Raiders, Aliaksei Protas from Brayden Watts and Remy Aquilon, 17:35

Second Period

2-1, Raiders, Brayden Watts from Ozzy Wiesblatt (power play), 0:48

2-2, Wheat Kings, Reid Perepeluk from Marcus Kallionkieli and Luka Burzan, 13:24

3-2, Raiders, Ozzy Wiesblatt from Ilya Usau and Landon Kosior, 13:56

Third Period

4-2, Raiders, Brayden Watts from Aliaksei Protas and Jeremy Masella, 16:35

ICE

The Raiders are closing out their second consecutive three-game weekend on Sunday, taking on the Winnipeg ICE.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW