Prince Albert Raiders forward Dante Hannoun and the rest of the team will be looking for their first crucial win of the Memorial Cup tonight. (Vincent Ethier/CHL Images)

By Jeff D'Andrea

Back to normal

Habscheid: ‘You’ll see the real Raiders’

May 20, 2019 | 11:59 AM

HALIFAX — The Prince Albert Raiders sputtered in the spotlight on Friday night, beginning the 2019 Memorial Cup Presented by Kia with a 4 -1 loss to the hosting Halifax Mooseheads. They were hesitant, nervous at times. They even flipped the puck over the glass twice within a three minute span.

What they showed on Friday wasn’t the same Raiders team that won the 2019 Rogers WHL Championship series, or the Raiders team that won 54 games in the regular season. But now that the nerves have been worked through and the team relished two days worth of rest, head coach Marc Habscheid is confident they can return to their old selves for Monday’s game against the champion team from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).

“You’ll see the real Raiders,” Habscheid said. “We had a good practice today. It was a real good practice. You could tell our guys were back. [Saturday] did them a lot of good. We just gave them a day off, away from the rink. We came in and had a short, 20 minute practice and you could tell they were engaged. We’ll be ready to go, but we’re playing a real good team.”

The Rouyn-Noranda Huskies were the only team that finished ahead of the Raiders in the CHL standings this season. They were both fighting back and forth, with the Raiders taking the majority of the top spots in the first half, while the Huskies came on strong in the second.

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“They were ranked number one. We kind of went back and forth all year and they ended up with the ranking and deservedly so. They’re a good team,” Habscheid said. “They’re quick, they’re fast and [Noah] Dobson obviously is a quite a player. He’s a world class player and eats up a lot of ice time. They’re well organized, they work real hard, they’re quick and they’re fast with the puck.”

The Raiders will have to keep a keen eye on Dobson who has been a force at this tournament before. Last year in Regina, Dobson won the Memorial Cup with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan before getting traded to the Huskies this season. Dobson had 36 points in 28 games with the Huskies and was the 12^th overall pick of the New York Islanders in 2018.

Huskies head coach and general manager Mario Pouliot, who also coached last year’s Titan team to the championship, compared Dobson to NHL all-star defenceman Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He coached Letang for two years in midget AAA at Collège Antoine-Girouard Gaulois from 2002-04 and sees similarities between the two.

“Both of them are great skaters, effortless skaters, ton of poise with the puck,” Pouliot said. “But the difference with Dobbie, I coach him in the junior (league) and coached Kris in the midget AAA… Noah’s overall game, defensive game and offensive game is similar to Kristopher’s, but they are different leaders too.”

The Huskies are in a similar position to the Raiders. They also started the Memorial Cup off 0-1 after a loss, falling 5-2 to the Guelph Storm on Saturday.

“We want to bounce back from our first game. We didn’t play like we want, we didn’t play a Husky game,” Huskies forward Joël Teasdale said. “We want to get back at it and get the first win out of the way. It’s our work ethic. We work hard on every aspect of the game. We have a good forecheck, a good D-zone and we can put the puck in the back of the net. We’re physical and we’re fast. We have to do that to be better.”

Hopping hosts

They may be the only team in the Memorial Cup that didn’t win a league championship this year, but that hasn’t stopped the hosting Halifax Mooseheads from leading the pack.

They beat the WHL champion Raiders 4-1 on Friday, then defeated the OHL best (1-1) Guelph Storm 5-2 on Sunday to become the first team in the tournament to pick up two wins. They will wrap up the round robin on Wednesday against the Huskies.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW