Mooseheads’ coach: ‘The series is not over’
Halifax trails Quebec 3-1 in final
The Halifax Mooseheads are hoping now is a good time for history to repeat itself.
They dug out of a 2-0 hole in the third round of the QMJHL playoffs to eliminate the Sherbrooke Phoenix in six games. Now they’re behind 3-1 to the Quebec Remparts in the championship series so they’re trying to access that experience to engineer an even bigger comeback.
But even if they can somehow pull that off, it wouldn’t even be the most momentous turnaround in the team’s history. Eleven years ago when Nathan Mackinnon and Jonathan Drouin were star rookies, the Mooseheads erased a 3-0 deficit against the Remparts in an epic seven-game second-round win.
“The series is not over,” Mooseheads head coach Sylvain Favreau said. “The last time I checked you need four games to win. I think we’re going to take a look back at the 2012 team that was down 0-3 to the Remparts. The belief is still there and the confidence is still there in our dressing room.”
If not for a few different breaks, it could easily be the Mooseheads up 3-1 in this best-of-seven. One of Quebec’s wins was in overtime and Wednesday’s Game 4 loss was by one goal and also included a controversial call to turn over a scoring play by Markus Vidicek that would’ve flipped the game in Halifax’s favour.
But the Mooseheads have been preaching all year how they prioritize their next challenge above everything else and are only focused on playing well in Friday’s Game 5 in Quebec City at the moment.
“We’ve been challenged mentally and physically all year long,” Vidicek said. “It’s just another game for us. We’re going to have bad starts and ups and downs in our game. It’s just refocusing in between periods and even on the bench and during TV timeouts.”
The same goes for the Mooseheads’ view of the big picture. They obviously can’t win three games in one night so their only option is to stave off elimination one step at a time.
“We’ve got a job to do,” Vidicek said. “We’ve got to go there and win. That’s the bottom line no matter how many fans they’ve got or how loud it is. We know we’ve got a job to do.”
Remparts head coach Patrick Roy has been promoting the same mentality with his group as well and isn’t about to change his tune now.
“Yeah the fourth win is the hardest one but I’m not thinking about the win,” Roy said. “I’m thinking about the steps and the process. And what is the process? It’s how we’re going to start the game, how we’re going to play in that first period and then the second. It would be silly for us to start thinking about what might happen at the end of the game - winning or losing.
“The focus needs to be on the present moment and we need to stay there. They have pressure as well. Nobody wants to lose so they’re coming with pressure. They know their back’s against the wall so we need to be very good, there’s no doubt about it.”
The Mooseheads will not have injured defenceman David Moravec on Friday but forwards Attilio Biasca and Zachary L’heureux are day to day. They will be game-time decisions but it’s obvious they won’t be 100 per cent even if they are able to dress.
“Regardless of losing those guys, I think we played a great second and third period (in Game 4) and we were a goal away from winning (that) one with a depleted lineup,” Favreau said. “I think it goes to show the character in our dressing room. It’s a next man up mentality and that’s why we have depth and we have guys that can step in and play.”
For the Remparts, they don’t want to give the Mooseheads any opportunity to lift themselves off the mat.
“Exactly,” Quebec winger Zachary Bolduc said. “We don’t want to wait until the sixth or seventh game to play our way. We’re going to be ready on Friday.”
If the Remparts are able to finish the job, it will be the franchise’s first Gilles Courteau Trophy in the modern era. They won five championships in the early 1970s but even the famously decorated Roy has never been able to get them over the hump since the franchise returned to the Quebec capital in 1997.
“It’s a great city to play hockey in,” Remparts goalie William Rousseau said. “The fans are great so we have a big opportunity here to bury that chance. We’re missing just one victory but we need to stay in the present moment. We don’t need to think too much about that but I think the fans in Quebec deserve it so we’re going to prepare ourselves for that.”
If necessary, Game 6 will be in Halifax on Sunday at 5 p.m. and Game 7 would be back in Quebec City on Monday night.