IJHL teams struggle on home ice

Island teams play interlocking games with New Brunswick league squads

Home ice was a harsh place for the Island Junior Hockey League squads on Sunday.

The Moncton Vitos downed the Eastern Maniacs 5-2, and the Cap-Pelé Predators got past the Kensington Moase Plumbing and Heating Vipers 5-4 in interlocking play with the New Brunswick Junior League.

Kensington fell to 11-13-4, and Eastern dropped to 6-20-1.

Vitos 5, Maniacs 2

In Souris, the Vitos scored twice in the first and second periods and salted away the win.

Philippe-Alexis Vachon (1-1), Maxime Saulnier (1-1), Jeremy Leblanc, Pat Landry and Joseph Theriault had goals for Moncton while multi-assist games went to Samuel Ingersoll (3) and Louis-Joseph Vachon (2).

Blake Jamieson and Cole Jenkins netted Eastern’s goals.

Julien Landry earned the goaltending win over Noah Laybolt.

Moncton led 2-0 after the first period and 4-1 at the second intermission. The teams finished tied 30-30 in shots. Eastern tallied the game’s lone power-play goal.

Predators 5, Vipers 4

Cap-Pelé built a 5-0 lead 11:20 into the second period, before the Vipers caught fire and nearly stole the win in Kensington.

Alexi Guitard (2-1), Kyle Furze, Chad Leblanc and Kevin McGraw helped the Preds out to the five-goal edge, but Nick Bouchey, Parker Ronahan and Jesse Jay cut that lead to 5-3 after two periods.

In the third frame, Riley Gallant (1-1) made things close at 5-4, but the Vipers couldn’t get the equalizer on Cap-Pelé goalie Mathieu Landry, who stopped 32 of 36 shots in the win.

Garrett Murray chipped in two assists for the Vipers. Marcel Newcomb (3) and Cristian Gregan (2) each had multi-assist games for the Predators.

Cap-Pelé outshot Kensington 39-36 and netted the game’s only power-play goal.