Hurricanes fall short in loss to Prince Albert

By Lethbridge Herald on January 16, 2026.

Nathan Reiter
Lethbridge Herald

Despite their best effort, the Lethbridge Hurricanes couldn’t find a way to knock off the Prince Albert Raiders falling 3-1 at the VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Friday night.

Hurricane head coach Matt Anholt says he saw some positives despite the final result on the scoreboard.

“I think you’ve got to kind of find some hidden wins right now with our group, and especially when we’re playing a team as loaded as they are, you make no bones about it. They’ve got a World Junior player on their third line, they’ve got a guy with 20 points on their fourth line. It’s a hard matchup for us, but we made them earn a win tonight. There were a lot of guys on their team that had to block shots and take hits to make plays, and they had to play a hard road game, which is I think a little bit of a win for our group. Really proud of our effort.”

Jonah Sivertson’s 14th goal of the season would get the visiting Raiders off and running at the 5:07 mark of the first period. The 17-year-old would fire a shot that would squeak through the five hole of Koen Cleaver. Daxon Rudolph picked up the lone assist.

Alisher Sarkenov would double the Prince Albert lead at the 12:51 mark with his ninth goal of the campaign. Max Heise and Linden Burrett provided the helpers.

Shots favoured the Raiders 14-5 after twenty minutes.

After a scoreless second period, Lethbridge would strike with a power play goal exactly one minute into the third period. Kyle Heger would fire a shot from the point that would sneak through Raider netminder Steele Bass. It was Heger’s first goal as a Hurricane and sixth of the campaign. Easton Daneault had the only helper.

Off a faceoff, Brandon Gorzynski would restore the two goal lead for the Raiders at the 2:11 mark. The Dallas Stars prospect would slide a puck over the pad of Cleaver for his 18th goal of the season. Brayden Dube and Aiden Oiring had the assists.

Lethbridge would push, but couldn’t find the back of the net again as Steele Bass made 18 saves to earn the win. Koen Cleaver made 26 stops in the losing effort for Lethbridge.

Anholt says he liked the compete level of Lethbridge in the game.

“You want to see that out of every game, even when you’re down in the dumps or high in the standings, regardless, you want a lot of guys to play for the crest on the jersey. We can take that loss if we’re going to play that hard. It’s an elite team we’re playing. Hopefully that we bring that competitive edge tomorrow and we can see if we can get a win tomorrow.”

The Hurricanes return to action on Saturday night when they travel to take on the Red Deer Rebels. Puck drop is set for 6 p.m.