Raiders grind out 1-0 win to spoil Blades home opener

The Prince Albert Raiders were able to hold off the Saskatoon Blades for a grinding 1-0 win to wrap up opening weekend in the Western Hockey League Saturday at SaskTel Centre.

The Raiders and Blades completed the home-and-home series with a stagnant sequel to Friday’s 3-2 overtime Blades win in Prince Albert.

Many assumed the tentative play would be over after the opening night, but a lack of scoring plays and missed opportunities was on tap for a second consecutive night in front of an announced crowd of 6,221 people in Saskatoon.

“This one is not going to go down as one of the Picasso’s in the history of the Blades-Raiders rivalry” Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid said following the game. “I didn’t really care who got the winner.”

The winning goal belonged to Cole Fonstad after he rushed down the wing and took advantage of some space to step into a shot that beat Blades goaltender Nolan Maier with 7:58 to go in the third period.

After the Blades entered the weekend as the third-ranked team in the nation, it was the defending-champion Raiders that grabbed three of a possible four points from its rivals after the two-game set.

“Where I didn’t really like our game was our offensive heart,” Blades head coach Mitch Love said. “I just didn’t think we did enough to generate offense by going to hard areas or stopping and competing on pucks.”

Weeks of speculation that Prince Albert was going to regress after an exhausting championship run a season ago were turned upside down thanks to the weekend results.

“I just like the way our moxie was. We’re defending champions and we expect our guys to play a certain way and carry that mantle. That trophy’s ours until somebody takes it away from (us) and that’s been our line of thinking so far and that will carry on,” Habscheid said.

Raiders goaltender Boston Bilous was the star of the game after making a few saves on breakaways and powerplay attempts in the first two period, but his biggest tests would arrive in the final minutes of the third period.

A Riley McKay shot from the side of the net was smothered by Bilous before he was able to glove aside Kyle Crnkovic’s last-ditch effort from long distance as time expired.

Saskatoon is hoping a lack of offensive punch – scoring three goals in two games – is behind them as players on the team familiarize themselves with one another.

“It’s opening week of the season, so I think there’s going to be mistakes. Everyone knows that. You go to try and limit those and not let them happen as much,” Maier said

Maier was able to stymie a Fonstad wraparound attempt by going post-to-post with extreme flexibility to give his team a fighting chance, but it was to no avail.

Boston Bilous had 26 saves in the win. Maier had 25 saves.

Saskatoon will take five days to get ready for Friday night’s clash against the Winnipeg Ice, the East Division’s newest member after the team moved from Kootenay in the offseason.