Mooseheads Edge Wildcats
MOOSEHEADS NIP WILDCATS
Philippe Gadoury two goal third period lifted the Halifax Mooseheads to a 3-2 win over the Moncton Wildcats in Quebec Major Junior Hockey league action at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax on Saturday night.
With the win the Mooseheads snap a three game losing skid while spoiling Monctons bid to win their third straight game. Moncton was hoping to build momentum after beating Shawinagan on Sunday and Charlottetown on Friday night 7-4 in Moncton.
The Moncton Wildcats got stellar goaltending from Alex Dubeau again being badly outshot for a second straight game 31-24. Dubeau (8-6-0) made many huge saves in all three periods to keep the Cats close.
Danny Moynihan opened the scoring at the 19:46 mark of the first period firing a Nikolaj Ehlers pass past Dubeau’s stick side to make it 1-0 after 1 period.
After a scoreless second period Gadourey made it 2-0 Mooseheads snapping home a wrist shot past Dubeau on the power play at 2:55 with Matt Klebansky in the penalty box then less than four minutes later Gadourey banked home a beautiful pass from Vincent Watts to make it 3-0 at the 6:04 of the third period.
The Wildcats proved that they were not going to roll over and play dead. Jacob Sweeney scored his second of the year on the power play to get the Cats on the power play at 7:53 from Ivan Barbashev and Will Smith to cut the lead to 3-1.
The power play proved to be advantageous for Moncton later in the period when Stephen Johnson found a loose puck in a goal mouth scramble and beat Zach Furcale (5-6-0-1) to make it 3-2. Sweeney and Connor Garland got assists on the goal.
Moncton did everything they could to find the equalizer however strong goaltending from Furcale preserved the win for the Mooseheads who improve to 6-10-1-1 and 14 points while Moncton drops to 10-8-0-0 and stays at 20 points and trail Saint John for first in the Maritime Division of the QMJHL.
The three stars in the game on Saturday night, Jacob Sweeney of Moncton was the third star while Nik Ehlers was star number two and the two goal performance of Phillippe Gadourey earned him first star honors.
Monctons next game is Tuesday night as they travel to Charlottetown to play the Islanders. Game time is 7 pm. Catch all the action on CITA FM with Roger White with the pre game show at 6:50.
