Gatineau runs away with it at Scotiabank Centre
2024-12-01
The high of Saturday’s home victory quickly evaporated for the Mooseheads and their fans on Sunday afternoon at Scotiabank Centre where the team was outplayed in a 6-2 loss to the visiting Gatineau Olympiques.
20-year-old forward Jeremie Minville had a four-point afternoon with two goals and two assists as the last place overall Olympiques (5-17-5-1) defeated Halifax for the second time this season. Charles Desmet also notched his first two career goals for Gatineau.
The visitors jumped out to a 3-nothing lead before the Herd put together back-to-back goals from Braeden MacPhee in the second period and Brady Schultz just 54 seconds into the third period to briefly make things interesting by cutting the Gatineau lead to 3-2.
It was a sluggish start to the day for Halifax who did not skate with the same pace and energy as they did one night earlier which led to them falling behind by a trio of goals by the 2:03 mark of the second period. The Moose slowly got some momentum back about midway through the contest and wound up outshooting the Olympiques 26-23 when it was all said and done. Mental mistakes and penalties cost the team with Gatineau cashing in on two-of-four opportunities on the power play. Desmet tallied an important insurance goal with less than seven minutes to play in regulation to make it a 4-2 game before Minville sealed it with an empty net goal when coach Andrew Lord opted to pull goalie Mathis Rousseau with 3:43 remaining on the clock. Desmet then tacked on his second of the game in the dying seconds to embellish the final score. Jeremie Dumas-Larouche, and Justin Boiselle accounted for the other Gatineau goals.
The Mooseheads got assists from Lou Levesque, Antoine Fontaine and Amelio Santini as their record dropped to 10-13-3-0. 18-year-old goalie Nathan St-Pierre was called up for the road trip for the Olympiques and got his first career win with 24 saves. He is the nephew of Mooseheads legend and Stanley Cup Champion Jean-Sebastien Giguere who made so many great memories in the same building in the late 1990’s.
The home stand will continue for Halifax with games at Scotiabank Centre on Thursday and Friday when the high-powered Moncton Wildcats visit, followed by the Val d’Or Foreurs. Both games start at 7pm. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com.
