Up to the challenge
Islanders host Mooseheads tonight
Life without Lukas Cormier starts tonight for the Charlottetown Islanders.
The team’s second-leading scorer left Monday to take part in Hockey Canada’s selection camp for the world junior tournament.
“Obviously, it’s a big hole to fill, but we have a lot of confidence in that room,” defenceman Noah Laaouan said outside the team’s dressing room recently. “I think we saw it last year when he went down with that foot injury, everybody stepped up and made contributions.”
The Isles, holding down first place in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with a 11-2-0-0 record, host the Halifax Mooseheads (5-52-2) tonight at 7 p.m. at the Eastlink Centre. The game was one of four the league recently rescheduled to give teams more time off during the Christmas holiday.
Charlottetown will not call up any player to be the seventh defenceman at this time
but has a few options close by. The list includes Charlottetown Bulk Carriers Knights teammates Isaac Vos and Landon MacDonald, Beran Simard at The Mount Academy and Dell Welton with the Truro Bearcats.
“We have to look at it as an opportunity for someone who maybe hasn’t got the minutes they were hoping for,” head coach Jim Hulton said.
He doesn’t expect to break up the second pair of Oscar Plandowski and Will Trudeau, preferring not to have a domino effect through the pairs in Cormier’s absence.
The Mooseheads are responsible for one of the Islanders’ only two losses this season as Elliot Desnoyers scored his fourth of the game with 36 seconds left in regulation as the Herd defeated the Isles 5-4 Nov. 6 in Halifax.
Hulton is looking for more consistency in his team’s play.
“We’re fortunate that the results are there, but our play has been a little bit spotty,” he said. “We’re hoping to learn from the last time that we played Halifax and make sure from first shift to last shift its consistent.”
Zachary L’Heureux will serve the final game of his four-game suspension handed out for unsportsmanlike conduct and taking off helmet during a fight with Drew Elliott on Nov. 6.
Goalie Jacob Goobie gets his first start for Charlottetown since the teams’ previous meeting.
“He wanted one back against them last time when I talked to him, so this is the perfect opportunity to get back in,” Hulton said.
Halifax is undefeated in regulation in its last four games, going 2-0-0-2 during the stretch.
Overage goalie Alexis Gravel has also played two games for the Herd since Charlottetown last saw them.