The team in town tonight are Raiders IHC, the Essex based outfit come into this season after a 9th placed finish last year that saw them miss out on the postseason. The team are once more led by head coach Sean Easton and the team looks like they will have a great chance of making the postseason come March next year.
In goal things look much the same with the duo of Ethan James and Brad Windebank returning. While both are young, they have bundles of potential and should be able to give the Raiders a solid base and also steal some results for their team.
On the import front there was one returnee and one new face to start the season. The returning import is Slovakian forward Erik Piatak who was back for his third consecutive season with the Raiders but has since departed by mutual consent midway through the year. The new signing is a Canadian power forward, Matthieu Gomercic Gomercic’s playing career took him through the USports system and once he graduated, he played 17 games with the Atlanta Gladiators in the ECHL before joining the Raiders. Joining the team after Piatak’s departure was Alex Roberts, after being released from Bristol he was on the market and the Raiders now boast two good power forwards to lead their offence this year.
On the blueline the core of the Raiders defensive unit was retained and they were led by veteran D-man Dan Scott until he had to leave midseason to take up a career opportunity outside of the sport. The core are now led by Sean Barry, Tom Relf, Jack Cooper and Callum Wells. There are two new signings, Elliott Dewey has signed from the Basingstoke Bison and Ethan Reid has made the step up from NIHL1 where he was playing with the Chelmsford Chieftains.
The Raiders have retained some key British forwards for this season, last years top scorer Jake Sylvester is back again, he will be joined by club captain Aaron Connolly and Brandon Ayliffe. These 3 will be looked to as key offensive threats in addition to the imports for the Raiders this season.
The two key offensive signings made by the Raiders this summer are highly rated forward prospect Harry Gulliver who split his time last season between Leeds and Manchester Storm. Blaho Novak has also returned for the Raiders for his second spell with the club after not playing post-pandemic.
