It has\u00a0been a smooth ride through the WHL playoffs for Vancouver Canucks prospect Braeden Cootes, but the road is about to get bumpy as the two titans in the Eastern Conference begin battle on Friday night.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cootes and his Prince Albert Raiders will have had eight full days with no games when they take to the ice on Friday night. The Raiders swept the Saskatoon Blades in the second round of the WHL playoffs and will now match up with the high-flying Medicine Hat Tigers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This series is primed to be a thriller. The Raiders finished the season with the top record in the WHL\u2019s Eastern Conference, sporting a 52-10-6 record, while the Tigers were two points back, finishing the regular season at 50-10-8.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re\u00a0a great team. They have so much skill, and you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want to give them power plays because they make you pay,\u201d said Cootes of the Tigers. \u201cWe are just making sure we are ready to go.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0going to be a battle. So,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0going to be a lot of fun.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The regular season series saw each squad pick up a pair of victories. The Tigers won two games early in the season, but the Raiders won the last two games. Cootes has only played against the Tigers twice, as he was traded to the Raiders in January, but has beaten them in both games this season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cootes believes that his Raiders team has consistently improved throughout the playoffs and that this is just part of the process for their organization throughout the season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting better each day and each game, trying to take it day by day, and we are enjoying it, which is good. We are having fun and not being too stressed out or anything, just staying in the moment,\u201d said Cootes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0just getting started; we still have a lot more to do. And from now on, there are no easy games.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cootes has picked up five goals and six assists for 11 points in nine playoff games. He has been one of the top scorers at even strength, scoring nine of his 11 points at evens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has\u00a0been a smooth ride through the WHL playoffs for Vancouver Canucks prospect Braeden Cootes, but the road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-557530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-vancouver","12":"tag-vancouver-canucks","13":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}