Mooseheads drop first two games at home against Remparts

HALIFAX — The state of affairs is far from ideal for the Halifax Mooseheads.

They’re down 2-0 in their firstround playoff series with the Quebec Remparts and the next three games are scheduled to be played in Quebec City.

This is not how most predicted the best-of-seven would go between the Memorial Cup hosts and the bottom seed in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Eastern Conference.

“Those games are in the past now,” said Halifax forward Keith Getson, who spent the first 4 ½ seasons in the league with the Charlottetown Islanders. “It sucks but there were a couple of tough bounces and I think we’re going to come back really strong in Game 3.”

The heavily favoured Mooseheads followed up Friday’s 3-2 loss with a 5-4 overtime setback on Saturday. The results left the 7,657 Scotiabank Centre fans stunned, while the players did their best to collect themselves and stay positive.

“They’re a hard-working team,” Getson said. “You can’t underestimate anybody. This time of year, everybody works hard and everybody wants to win.

“But honestly, I’m not worried whatsoever. We’ve got a really talented, good bunch of players in there. It’s a great group of guys and we’re really close-knit so I’m not worried.”

The Remparts also seemed to be in a state of surprise, although for very different reasons. They came to Halifax as the underdogs just hoping for the best but certainly couldn’t have imagined it going this well.

“It’s good to get off to this kind of start; it’s a pretty amazing feeling right now,” said Quebec winger Andrew Coxhead. “We’ve just got to keep on that same level and bring it in the next game.

“When you’re the underdog, it is easier in some ways. There aren’t many expectations and you can just go out there and play your hardest.”

Following the upset in Friday’s opener, the task didn’t get any easier in Game 2 when the Mooseheads had to deal with the absence of regular season scoring leader Samuel Asselin. He received an automatic one-game suspension for his major penalty in Game 1. BO Groulx, Alexis Sansfacon, Cole Stewart and Marcel Barinka were also out of the lineup.

But on the plus side, winger Maxim Trepanier returned after missing all but one game since Jan. 10 with a concussion. He scored a key goal in the second period.

“We’ve got a lot of great players on this team who can step up when it’s time to step up,” Halifax winger Arnaud Durandeau said. “We’ve been doing that all year. We had to push through that tonight and also with Groulx out.”

The Remparts got two goals from Coxhead and one each from Sam Dunn, Philipp Kurashev and Jeremy Laframboise. Kurashev scored the winner 11:40 into overtime on a deflected shot on that power play after a controversial interference call on Durandeau.

Halifax’s Raphael Lavoie tied it with less than four minutes left in the third period and Durandeau had the other two Mooseheads goals.

Carmine-Anthony Pagliarulo turned aside 41 shots for Quebec. Alexis Gravel allowed four goals on 29 shots in 40 minutes for Halifax before being replaced by Cole McLaren to start the third period.

McLaren made 22 saves.