If the Prince George Cougars are looking for a measuring stick to find out how they stack up against the best of their peers the Prince Albert Raiders are it.
The Raiders (37-5-0-1) are heading into their 15th week as the top-ranked major junior team in Canada and they continue to set the bar in the Western Hockey League.
The good news for Cougars fans is they get to see firsthand what makes the Raiders tick. This season, all East Division teams make the trek to B.C. and the Raiders are in Prince George to take on the Cougars tonight at CN Centre (7 p.m. start).
The Raiders' roster includes two members of Canada's world junior team - goalie Ian Scott and right winger Brett Leason. Scott is a fourth-round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2017 whose 1.78 goals-against average and .937 save percentage leads the league. Leason joined the Raiders over the summer in a trade from Tri-City and he's having a career year with 30 goals and 39 assists for 69 points in 36 games - fourth in the WHL scoring race.
Leason has had plenty of offensive support from the likes of C Noah Gregor (26-33-59), LW Cole Forstad (16-28-44) and C Kelly Parker (20-21-41). Gregor was a fourth-round draft pick of the San Jose Sharks in 2016, Parker is an Ottawa Senators prospect, and Forstad was picked in the fifth round in 2018 by the Montreal Canadiens. The Raiders just acquired C Dante Hannoun (20-20-40) in a trade from the Victoria Royals.
On the Prince Albert defence, one player to watch is 16-year-old Kaiden Guhle, the first-overall pick in the 2017 WHL bantam draft. Guhle is the younger brother of former Cougars defenceman Brendan Guhle, who now plays in the AHL for the Rochester Americans. In 40 games as a WHL rookie the younger Guhle has a goal and 10 assists.
Marc Habscheid's Raiders have scored more goals (198) than any other WHL team and their 95 goals allowed ranks third in the league. For perspective, the Cougars have scored just 95 goals (second-lowest in the WHL) and have allowed 130 (seventh stingiest in the league).
But the Raiders are not unbeatable, as the lowly Swift Current Broncos proved Dec. 4 in Swift Current when they beat Prince Albert 3-2 in a shootout.
The Raiders are just beginning a trip that will take them to all six B.C. stops in the WHL. The Cougars (16-22-1-2) are catching the Raiders at a time when the Cats are playing their best hockey of the season, coming off 7-2 and 4-0 wins at home against the Kelowna Rockets. In their past six games combined the Cougars have allowed just nine goals, an average 1.5 per game.
"Since Christmas time we've been playing unbelievably defensively, (goalie Taylor) Gauthier's been outstanding for us," said Cougars winger Josh Maser, a fourth-round Raider pick in the 2014 WHL bantam draft. (The Raiders traded him to Prince George in October 2016 for forward Adam Kadlec.)
"We've been scoring when we need to score and blocking shots and doing all the small things right and just bearing down."
Two other Cougars, defencemen, Austin Crossley and Rhett Rhinehart, came over from the Raiders in the January 2018 deal that sent winger Kody McDonald to Prince Albert. McDonald was traded to Victoria along with C Carson Miller last week in the Hannoun deal.
"Me, Crossley and Rhinehart all used to play on the Raiders and we know quite a few of their players but that's not going to change anything," said Maser. "We know they're first place in the league but every team can get beaten. We know Seattle went into Prince Albert (last Wednesday) and they beat them 4-1.
"We just have to go out there and work hard. They're obviously a very skilled team, an older team, and everyone has to play their role and block shots, get pucks to the net, go out and hit, crash the net and I think we can beat them."
The Cats are 4-1 in the new year. Their two weekend wins moved them into the second Western Conference wild-card spot and left them just three points behind Kelowna for the third and final B.C. Division playoff spot.
"Since the break we've been real good and give the guys credit, they're enjoying buying into a system," said head coach Richard Matvichuk. "Our goal was to play like this right from the beginning and it's paying off. We're practicing a lot harder and doing the right things on and off the ice."
The Cougars host the Kamloops Blazers Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
