OT theme continues with a win over Shawinigan
2026-10-18
The Halifax Mooseheads breathed a sigh of relief when Nathan Langlois banged a puck across the line in overtime on Sunday afternoon at Scotiabank Centre. His goal secured a 4-3 victory and helped the team survive a scare against the Shawinigan Cataractes and a heroic goaltending performance from their call-up goaltender.
The diminutive Jacob St-Cyr was appearing in his first game of the season and making just the second start of his career and the 5-foot-9 netminder nearly stole the game for the visitors by stopping 48-of-52 shots to earn the first star of the game honours.
That's the ballgame
Nathan Langlois gets it across the line for the OT win!#GoMooseGo | #ForTheCity pic.twitter.com/BZtoPEuokf
— Halifax Mooseheads (@HFXMooseheads) October 18, 2026
Halifax needed a third period power play goal from Will Bent to tie the game and force the extra period. Sunday’s game marked the eighth time in the opening 10 games of the season that the Mooseheads have gone to either overtime or a shootout. Bent’s tally was his first of the season since returning on Friday after sitting out since last January with a shoulder injury that required surgery. It was also his first goal scored since January 4th of last season.
In what was close to being a missed opportunity for the Mooseheads against what is considered a weaker opponent in the Cataractes, the Herd managed to find a way and the Bent goal proved to be the spark they needed. Nathan Langlois has been a force for the team throughout the early part of the season and buried his team-best seventh goal by banking it off the goalie and watching it barely cross the line. The Mooseheads celebrated while the officials initially waved it off before confirming a good goal after a review.
Quinn Kennedy had a strong game after being moved to a line with Mateo Nobert and Paul Sintschnig and was the second star with a goal and two assists. He opened the scoring in the game at 3:45 of the first period while his linemate Sintschnig made it 2-0 Halifax less than three minutes later. The Moose faltered a bit at both ends of the ice after building the early lead and allowed the Cataractes to gain some momentum in their favour. Shawinigan scored three straight goals in the second period to take a 3-2 lead and there was some nervous energy in the building amongst the 6,837 fans at Scotiabank Centre.
The third period started slowly but gained traction for the Mooseheads after awhile and they controlled the play right up until the horn that signalled yet another overtime.
Carson Mertz made the start in goal and came away with the win with 30 saves to his credit.
Defenceman Malik L’Italien was named the third star of the game with two assists while Mateo Nobert also notched two assists and had nine shots on goal. Nobert was snake bitten on a couple of Grade A chances earlier in the game when he missed on a first period penalty shot and then again on a breakaway later in the period.
Goals for Shawinigan came from Dylan Laframboise, Samuel Boyer and Chad Lygitsakos.
Forward Will Bent scored a big one today to force OT and talked about the win over Shawinigan. #GoMooseGo #ForTheCity pic.twitter.com/E3CtVGSFuW
— Halifax Mooseheads (@HFXMooseheads) October 18, 2026
Halifax pushed their record to 5-1-3-1 for 14 points through 10 games exactly one month into the season. Shawinigan’s record dropped to 3-5-2-0.
The Scotiabank Centre homestand will conclude next weekend for the Mooseheads when they host Cape Breton on First Responders Night coming up Friday at 7pm. The team will then host Charlottetown for the highly popular annual 90’s Night theme game on Saturday at 7pm. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.ca.
