Moose take Game 3
Moose take the win and 3-0 series lead
-By Willy Palov – The Chronicle Herald
http://thechronicleherald.ca/mooseheads/1122508-mooseheads-close-in-on-second-round-victory
The comforts of home helped the Gatineau Olympiques but not quite enough to upend the Halifax Mooseheads in Game 3 of their second-round series.
The Mooseheads skated to a 4-2 win in front of a lively crowd of 3,460 at the Robert Guertin Arena in Gatineau, Que., on Tuesday to take a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven.
“We knew they were going to come out hard,” said Halifax defenceman Trey Lewis. “It’s hard to play here in the regular season, let alone in the playoffs. They’re good in their own barn and we knew they were going come out strong. We prepared for that and I think we handled it well.”
Darcy Ashley gave the Mooseheads yet another quick start, scoring 2:25 into the game. But Emile Poirier did what no other Gatineau player had done to date in the series when he beat Zachary Fucale at 6:52 of the first period. It was the Olympiques’ first goal in nearly 127 minutes against the Mooseheads.
“You never expect to go a whole series and shut a team out,” Lewis said. “They worked hard and I think they earned it. But we battled through and came out with the victory.”
But the lift Gatineau got from ending the drought didn’t last long. Matthew Boudreau scored 51 seconds later and Stefan Fournier added a power-play goal before the end of the first period to make it 3-1.
Poirier notched his second of the game midway through the second period to cut Halifax’s lead to 3-2 but the Mooseheads locked down the win in the third period.
The Mooseheads only allowed four shots in the third period and got an empty-net goal from Fournier with 14.2 seconds left to clinch it.
“We’ve been working on that, not just in the playoffs but all year,” Lewis said of the low shot total. “That’s been a key to our game and I think we’re executing it well in this series.”
Like the first two games, the Olympiques played hard and did what they could to keep up with the Mooseheads. This game was the closest of the series, by far. But Halifax proved again it just has too much depth and firepower for Gatineau to overcome.
“Coming on the road, you want to kill the momentum as soon as possible and I think we did a pretty good job of that,” said Halifax forward Luca Ciampini.
“Right from the start we jumped out pretty hard so that was big for us. It was a big win.”
And if that wasn’t enough, the Mooseheads’ defence and goaltending was stellar once again. Fucale finished the night with 15 saves and Robert Steeves stopped 29 shots for Gatineau.
“We’re blocking a lot of shots and the chances they do get, Fucs has been a wall back there for us,” Lewis said. “It’s got to be frustrating for them. I know it would be frustrating for us if it was the other way around. We’ve just got to keep going and it’ll work out for us.”
Fournier (16 points) extended his points streak to seven games, as did Ciampini (nine points). Ciampini assisted on two goals.
“I didn’t even think about that but it’s been nice,” Ciampini said. “We’re both big guys who go to the front of the net to those areas so it’s nimce that we’re having some success. We just want to keep it going.”
The Mooseheads can wrap up the sweep with a win in Game 4 Wednesday night in Gatineau. If a fifth game is needed, it will also be in Gatineau on Friday. Games 6 and 7 are scheduled for Halifax on Sunday and Monday.
“We’re all prepared for them to come out hard again tomorrow,” Ciampini said. “We’ve been in this situation before and we’ve got to get the momentum right off the start again. If we play hard, we can’t give them any chances. We’ll want to take it to them early in the game.”
