The Swift Current Broncos got a taste of this season's top team during their first visit to Prince Albert tonight.

They battled the Raiders hard before eventually falling 6-2 to a deep hockey club.

"Overall the effort was there still," said Broncos assistant coach Brandin Cote. "The pace was higher than what we've seen at all this year... our message to the guys as we prepared was every little mistake, every little missed pass and an execution is coming right back at it. I think they saw that tonight. I think it was a good learning game for us... we hung in there pretty good. We shot ourselves in the foot more than they brought on us."



Tanner Nagel and Eric Houk scored for the Broncos in a losing cause. Noah Gregor led the way for Prince Albert with five points, while Sean Montgomery and Kody McDonald each scored twice for the Raiders.

The Broncos went 1 for 7 against the league's best penalty kill. The Raiders had actually been +4 when their PK was on the ice before tonight's game.

"We did some good things," Cote said. "We turned down some shots when we had some open looks. We fortunately got one against the top PK in the league so that's a positive... we've got to keep pushing away with our special teams."

An injury to Garrett Sambrook put the Broncos down to five defencemen for most of the game. They were also without veteran Matthew Stanley due to illness. That left three rookies, a 17-year-old sophomore and only one older defenceman in 19-year-old Noah King against the league's top offence.

"They held their own," Cote said. "For the most part they made smart, simple plays. They didn't get a lot of stuff around their net... that's a positive thing because these guys do play with a high pace."

The Raiders got the jump on Swift Current early hemming them in their own zone for much of the first half of the first period. Joel Hofer held the Broncos in it with 18 first period saves although the Raiders took a 1-0 lead when a fanned shot landed right on Gregor's stick.

Prince Albert jumped ahead 2-0 when Brett Leason pulled a move from Aleksi Heponiemi's old playbook skating behind the net and passing the puck behind him in front of the net for Montgomery's first of the game only eight seconds into the second period.

Nagel's goal came less than a minute later as Ethan Regnier found Ben King coming down the right wing on the power play. King ripped it off the crossbar and Nagel followed up on the rebound for his fourth goal of the season. King also hit another post on a later power play and had 3 of Swift Current's 19 shots.

"(King) has come along really good," Cote noted. "Playing with some of our older guys I think he's gained a little bit of confidence. That line has had overall some success lately. We prepared him a little bit. We knew he was going to face some tough competition with who he was matched up with and I thought he handled it really well."

The 16-year-old forward now has points in three straight games and seven of his eight points have come in the last 11 games.

It took less than two minutes for the Raiders to restore that two-goal lead as McDonald fired a puck through traffic to put the Raiders up 3-1.

The pace of play slowed some in the second period as the teams only combined for 14 shots. Swift Current pulled back to within a goal when Owen Blocker made a nice feed to Houk in front and he beat Donovan Buskey for his second career goal.

It took only 14 seconds for the Raiders to snatch momentum back on another McDonald shot that beat Hofer low on the glove hand side and Prince Albert never looked back. They added two more goals in the third period to pull away.

The game was Ian Briscoe's debut with Swift Current. He played on a line with Matthew Culling and Joona Kiviniemi. Roope Pynnonen returned to the lineup after missing four games with an injury.

Hofer made 37 saves in a losing cause for the Broncos, while Buskey stopped 17 of the 19 Swift Current shots. Prince Albert moved to 17-1-0-0 on the season. The loss dropped the Broncos to 3-15-0-1 and ended their point streak at three games.

The Broncos are back on the road on Saturday night in Regina. They host Red Deer on Sunday afternoon. We'll have both games on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Robertson Family Group Swift Current Broncos Hockey 30 minutes before puck drop.