Sea Dogs Start Preseason with 5-2 Win Over Moncton
Preseason hockey is here! The Saint John Sea Dogs started the preseason with a win over their rival Moncton Wildcats at the Aitken Centre in Fredericton on Thursday night. Goals came from Cole Burbidge, Reid Calder, Vince Elie, and Danny Akkouche in the 5-2 win.
Justin Robinson started in net for Saint John before switching with Charles-Antoine Girard for the second half of the game.
Eli James got the start for Moncton and Anthony Leblanc was in net for the second half.
A cross-checking penalty to Reid Calder at 4:46 started the Sea Dogs off on the penalty kill, but the score remained tied at zero when penalty was successfully killed.
Saint John opened the scoring at 7:58 with a goal from Windsor, Nova Scotia native Cole Burbidge.
A penalty for checking from behind was given to Moncton’s Raine Nadeau, and Saint John born Reid Calder capitalized on the opportunity, scoring his first goal for his hometown team.
A little over a minute later, Vince Elie, a second round pick in the 2021 QMJHL draft, hit the back of the net and increased the lead to 3.
Jacob Beaulieu received a major and a game misconduct for kneeing and the Sea Dogs went into the second period with 1:43 remaining in the penalty kill.
Shots after the first period were 19-11 for Moncton.
The Sea Dogs successfully killed the remainder of the major and play returned to 5-on-5.
Moncton’s Kiefer Lyons was sent off for interference at 4:23. At 5:08, Reid Calder and Raine Nadeau joined him in the box after some shoving in Moncton’s zone.
At 9:11, Danny Akkouche added another goal to the score clock and increased the Sea Dogs lead to 4-0.
Halfway through the period, the goaltenders for each team switched and Charles-Antoine Girard took his spot in the Sea Dogs net.
With 4:24 remaining in the period, Cole Burbidge scored his second of the night and Saint John went into the final period with a 5-0 lead.
Shots after 40 were 30-20 for Moncton.
Moncton scores twice early in the third period, goals coming from Quincy-Nicholas Supprien and Ben Mercer in the first five minutes of the period. After that, scoring slowed for both teams and the Sea Dogs took the win 5-2 to start the preseason.
Final shots were 39-26 for Moncton.
