Goaltender battle starts playoffs between Raiders and Oil Kings
Game one of the playoffs has come and gone for the Prince Albert Raiders and the Edmonton Oil Kings. The two teams started off with a fast paced, hard checking game that saw the Oil Kings come away with a 3-1 win after an empty netter late.
Things looked like they were going to start great for the Prince Albert Raiders when they got a powerplay in the first few seconds of the game. Unforetunately however, the Oil Kings would get a clear down the ice and the puck would bounce out front of Max Hildebrand in no man’s land. Caught between staying in goal and playing the puck, Hildebrand was caught at the top of his crease by a streaking Gracyn Sawchyn and Sawchyn took the puck and tucked it around Hildebrand for a shorthanded goal just 29 seconds in.
The Raiders and Oil Kings would battle back and forth for the rest of the period, and a hardworking goal from Niall Crocker would tie things up late in the period. Daxon Rudolph from the right point would fire a shot wide of the goal, bouncing it off the wall directly to Riley Boychuk. Boychuk would try to put the puck on goal but was blocked, and the puck came to Crocker who put it into the back of the net at 18:34.
A baffling situation happened near the end of the period where Ethan Bibeau and Rhys Pederson would lock up at centre and wrestle to the point Bibeau lost his helmet, and even with a referee standing right overtop of them no penalty was called. Instead, Oli Chenier was punched in the face at the other end, and somehow came away with a penalty that would give the Raiders over a minute of penalty to kill to start the second.
