Dominant Ice make quick work of overmatched Raiders

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This article was published 26/04/2022 (1320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The WHL’s top regular-season power play continued its reign of terror during Game 3 of Winnipeg’s Eastern Conference quarter-final against the Prince Albert Raiders Tuesday night.

The visiting Ice got a pair of power-play markers from Zach Benson and a single from Mikey Milne en route to a 10-1 thrashing of the Raiders and a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“I think we started with the first goal and we kind of built off that, having a four in the first and then I think once we finished that first period we knew we had the confidence to kind of continue that throughout the game and it showed,” said Milne, whose power-play marker 3:48 into the game gave the visitors their first lead.

Winnipeg can wrap up the series with a win against P.A. in Wednesday’s Game 4. Game time is 8 p.m.

Milne added an even-strength goal and a short-handed marker to complete a hat trick. The goals were his first of the post-season.

“He leads our team in chances, he gets a breakaway almost every game and he drives the (opposition) D back so even if he’s not scoring he can have an effect in the game,” said Ice head coach James Patrick. “When he gets hot you’re happy because he does score in bunches and hopefully it continues.”

Connor McClennon potted a goal and three assists for the winners while Conor Geekie, Owen Pederson, Jakin Smallwood and Skyler Bruce added singles as the Ice stormed to 4-0 and 9-0 period leads.

Benson added two assists and now has seven points in the series.

Winnipeg went 27.4 per cent (74-for-270) on the power play during the regular season and went 3-for-5 Tuesday and is now a cumulative 7-for-10 in the post-season.

“The power play has been the difference in the series and (the Raiders are) a team that wants to be real physical and they’re really physical in this building,” said Patrick. “They took the early penalty and we scored right away and that does take a bit of that aspect of their game out of play.”

The Raiders, who had star forward Ozzy Weisblatt back in the lineup after a lengthy absence due to a shoulder injury, are scoreless in 11 power-play chances in the series.

Weisblatt, a first-round pick of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks in the 2020 draft, had not played since March 12 while rehabbing the injury in California.

Winnipeg played without co-team MVP Matt Savoie who suffered a lower-body injury in Game 1. The 18-year-old forward is listed as day-to-day.

Harrison Lodewyk broke Ice goaltender Daniel Hauser’s shutout bid at 1:40 of the third period.

Hauser finished the night with 18 stops.

The series is a matchup of the No. 1-seeded Ice and No. 8 Raiders, who finished 50 points back of Winnipeg in the regular season standings.

“(Patrick) did a great job of just keeping us calm,” said Milne. “We knew we had another game tomorrow. So we just had to keep our heads up, play the right way and just focus on tomorrow now.”

Prince Albert starter Tikhon Chaika was pulled from the game in the second period after allowing five goals in 22 shots. His replacement, Max Hildebrand, came on to make nine saves on 14 shots.

Announced attendance at the Art Hauser Centre was 2,641.

THREE STARS: 1. Mikey Milne, Winnipeg (three goals, one assist); 2. Zach Benson, Winnipeg (two goals, two assists); 3. Connor McClennon, Winnipeg (one goal, three assists).

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14