Find out how the Screaming Eagles did at Centre 200 Friday night.
Screaming Eagles beat league-leading Sea Dogs in overtime
Never count the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles out of a game.
The local major junior team trailed the league-leading Saint John Sea Dogs 2-0 in the third period, before storming back to score two power play goals to tie the game late in the period, and eventually defeat the Sea Dogs 3-2 in overtime.
Screaming Eagles defenceman Ross MacDougall was proud of his team’s effort in the comeback win.
“I thought we played well all game — (Callum) Booth was having a great game for them, and we knew we had to get shots on him,” said MacDougall.
Cape Breton had a number of power play opportunities, before cashing in on two, including one on a five-minute major to Saint John’s Thomas Chabot.
MacDougall gave credit to the Sea Dogs penalty kill.
“It’s best in the league, so it took us a while to figure it out, but when we needed to score the most, we did,” said MacDougall.
Saint John opened the scoring early in the game as Samuel Dove-McFalls’ centreing pass bounced off Matt Green’s skate and found the back of the net to give the Sea Dogs a 1-0 lead 29 seconds into the first period.
The Sea Dogs extended the lead in the second period with Mira’s Cole Reginato scoring his seventh goal of the season, dekeing Cape Breton’s Kyle Jessiman at the 11 minute mark of the middle stanza.
Things got interested around the midway mark of the third period with Giovanni Fiore picking up a 10-minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct. Just over a minute later, Chabot was given a five-minute major for checking to the head of Cape Breton’s Yannik Bertrand, who left the game, but returned minutes later.
MacDougall started the comeback for the Screaming
Eagles as his point shot fooled Booth on the power play to make the score 2-1. Cape Breton tied the game with Leon Gawanke’s one-timer finding the back of the net on the power play at 18:01 of the final frame.
In overtime, Fiore, returning to the game after serving a misconduct, gave the Screaming Eagles the extra point by tipping a Phélix Martineau shot past Booth for his leagueleading 47th goal of the season, leading Cape Breton to the win.
Jessiman made 25 saves for Cape Breton, improving his record to 17-16-2-2. Booth stopped 19 of 22 shots for Saint John, his record falling to 25-12-2-1.
Screaming Eagles head coach and general manager MarcAndre Dumont said the win was connected directly to the team’s character.
“It’s not the first time we’ve come from behind,” he said. “This group of players have learned to never give up and never giving up is a skill, it doesn’t just fall from the sky, you have to work on it.”
Despite trailing going into the third period, Dumont said the message in the room was to just keep playing.
“We knew that defensively we were doing a fairly good job — we didn’t give a lot of shots, we didn’t give a lot of scoring chances in the first two periods,” he said. “We just kept our game plan going.”
Cape Breton will have five days off before they return to game action on Thursday, hosting former Screaming Eagle Pierre-Luc Dubois and the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. at Centre 200.
Game Notes: Friday’s game marked the 300th career Quebec Major Junior Hockey League contest for Cape Breton’s Olivier LeBlanc and Giovanni Fiore; Saint John’s Julien Gauthier and Matthew Highmore both missed the game with respective injuries.