Moose, Eagles wrap regular season with wins
The QMJHL regular season is finally in the books so it's time to take it up a notch for the playoffs.
The Halifax Mooseheads closed out the 2023-24 campaign with a 7-4 win over the Saint John Sea Dogs on the road on Saturday to give them a 42-18-7-1 final record. The Mooseheads finished first in the Maritimes Division and second in the Eastern Conference to set up a first-round meeting with the Bathurst Titan.
Playing playoff hockey will come as a nice change of pace after a long year of building that started way back in training camp in mid-august.
"It was great to finish with a win and now we're really looking forward to that first (playoff) game on Friday," Mooseheads head coach Jim Midgley said. "We'll take tomorrow off, like we usually do after back-to-back games, and then we'll get to work on Monday."
The outcome of Saturday's finale in Saint John had no bearing on the playoff picture but the Mooseheads still went into it hungry to finish with a win. They lost 5-2 to the Sea Dogs on Friday so the they wanted to do what they could to avoid going into the post-season on a three-game losing streak. The Mooseheads also dropped a 3-2 decision to the Moncton Wildcats last weekend.
But the Sea Dogs wanted a win to clinch the final playoff spot and the Mooseheads were missing six key regulars so it wasn't an easy task. Jordan Dumais, Peter Reynolds,
Jake Furlong, David Moravec, Lou Levesque and Braeden Macphee did not dress for Halifax.
The Mooseheads trailed 3-2 going into the third period but scored four straight goals to secure the win.
"We did lots of good things and I really liked our play away from the puck. It was much better today than yesterday," Midgley said. "We were tracking back well and that's what we want to see.
"And we got the win without six of our guys so that's a good way to finish the season. Now we can start to focus on Friday night."
Markus Vidicek, with two, Mathieu Cataford, Dylan Mackinnon, Jan Sprynar, Jack Martin and Logan Crosby had the goals for Halifax. Former Mooseheads winger Brody Fournier led the Sea Dogs with a pair and Tyler Peddle and Drew Elliott had one each.
Vidicek's two goals gave him 45 for the year and Cataford's single pushed his total to 40. Cataford finished the year as the team scoring leader with 89 points and Vidicek had 88. They finished third and fourth, respectively, in the league scoring race.
Mathis Rousseau made 32 saves for Halifax and Patrick Leaver stopped 34 shots for Saint John.
Cape Breton 3, Charlottetown 2: The Eagles ended the season on a nine-game winning streak to finish in seventh place overall with a 39-26-9-2 record.
Cam Squires, Tomas Cibulka and Olivier Houde scored in the win and Jakob Milota made 23 saves. Matthew Butler and William Shields had the goals for the Islanders.