Mooseheads clip Screaming Eagles
Cape Breton finishes first half of season on five-game losing skid
The Cape Breton Screaming Eagles lost 4-2 to the Halifax Mooseheads on Saturday to wrap up the first half of the Québec Major Junior Hockey League.
The loss was the fifth in a row for the Sydneybased team that hit the halfway mark of its 68game schedule with a record of 15-16-2-1 for 33 points and 12th place overall in the 18-team league.
The Screaming Eagles went into the game without leading scorer Drake Batherson, on duty with Canada’s national junior team, and defenceman Leon Gawanke, who remains in Europe following his time with Germany’s national junior squad.
Despite the loss of firepower, the visitors played tough against a highflying Halifax team that sits third in the league. Twice
the Screaming Eagles replied after allowing Mooseheads goals and the game was a 2-2 stalemate until Xavier Parent scored the game-winning goal in the second period.
But the outcome wasn’t a certainty until the Mooseheads’ Connor Moynihan scored an empty net insurance goal in the last minute of play.
Jared McIsaac and Patrick Kyte also scored for the hosts, while Peyton Hoyt and Jordan Ty Fournier replied for Cape Breton.
Kyle Jessiman absorbed the loss as he allowed three goals on 28 shots.
The Screaming Eagles are now off until Dec. 28 when they hit the road to face the Saint John Seadogs on Dec. 28 and Halifax on Dec.
30, before returning home to Sydney to play the Mooseheads at 2 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
The break allows players to return to their homes for Christmas and it gives the coaching staff some time to assess the team’s performance over the first half of the season.
Cape Breton is one of the youngest team’s in the league this season and its three 16-year-old players have all played significant roles thus far this season. Forwards Ryan Francis (nine goals, nine assists) and Brooklyn Kalmikov (10 goals, seven assists) are fifth and sixth respectively in team scoring, while Noah Laaouan has not looked out of place on the blue-line. Another rookie, 17-year-old Egor Sokolov, has also been productive. The big Russian has 13 goals and 14 assists in 33 games played, second only to Batherson and captain Phélix Martineau.
The league’s trade period officially begins today, so it is possible there may be some changes to the lineup when the season resumes after Christmas.
However, head coach and general manager Marc-André Dumont said in an interview Friday with the Cape Breton Post that all potential transactions will be “studied closely” and that any deals made will have to “make sense.”