When it comes to looking at who is the biggest rivals for the Halifax Raiders it is hard to look beyond their Canadian rivals from the other side of the country. This is a true rivalry of east coast vs west coast. I am of course talking about the rivalry between the Halifax Raiders and the Vancouver Whalers. A rivalry that had been fuelled by a war of words which took a weird twist at the trade deadline with jimmy slothface swapping teams for a bundle of picks.

Faceoff percentage overall:This was a clear battle of a possession based team in the Raiders going up against the run and gun style of the whalers. Overall the raiders dominated in the face off dot. The whalers averaged 47.77% efficiently while the raiders pulled off 52.22% efficiency when crossing sticks. These numbers will showcase the depth that the raiders have at center compared to the whalers



Face offs percentage in the neutral zone: when it came to dropping the puck in the middle of the ice the raiders outmuscled the whalers and managed to win 55.70% of the faceoffs vs the whalers 44.30% which allowed Halifax to control the flow of play. This stat also gave them the edge in 3 wins vs the 2 wins the whalers aquired.

Face off percentage in the defensive zone: when it came to winning face offs in their own end both teams managed to out muscle their opposition. The whalers won 53.47% of their defensive zone starts while the raiders managed to win 54.45%. These stats show just how important both teams put importance on defensive zone wins

Face off percentage in the offensive zone: because both teams put such emphasis on defensive zone wins, neither team managed a positive offensive zone rating. The whalers managed to win 45.55% of their offensive zone faceoffs while the raiders pulled off a success rate of 46.53%.