The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Mooseheads fall 5-2 to Islanders
Another win was within reach for the Halifax Mooseheads on Sunday afternoon but it just got away from them.
The Charlottetown Islanders had just a bit more in the tank than the Mooseheads and did enough to win 5-2 at the Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown.
"We got off to a bit of a slow start and they came out pretty hard," said Halifax head coach J.J. Daigneault. "Obviously they had the day off yesterday and for us we had to travel after playing last night (in Halifax). It was a quick turnaround but they got on us early and directed a lot of pucks on net.
"We got one back on the PP and actually our first period turned out to be pretty good. The guys were engaged and they forechecked hard, it was just that we had no finish. So the shots on net don't look good and the final score doesn't as well but I was very pleased with the effort."
The teams were tied 1-1 after the first period and the Islanders went ahead 3-2 in the second. They extended that to 4-2 in the third and then finished it off with an empty-netter.
Maxim Trepanier and Bo Groulx scored for the Mooseheads and Thomas Casey, with two, Gaetan Jobin, Liam Peyton and Max-Antoine Melancon had the Islanders goals. Trepanier extended his points streak to 13 games (20 points) and Groulx stretched his to 12 (21 points).
Cole McLaren stopped 37 shots for Halifax and Matthew
Welsh made 19 saves for Charlottetown.
The Mooseheads were also missing four key players. Senna Peeters (flu), Jared McIsaac (maintenance day), Justin Barron (upper body, day to day) and Samuel Dube (lower body, day to day) were all out of the lineup.
"We were obviously shortstaffed but I think that's also an opportunity for some guys," Daigneault said. "It's up to them to come up and have their best games. But again, it's a short turnaround and I wish we could've made that with our full team."
McIsaac returned to the lineup on Saturday at home against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. He hadn't played this season because he was rehabilitating from off-season shoulder surgery.
"It took the first period and then part of the second to feel as right as possible," McIsaac said. "But I think I did a pretty good job of managing the game. And (assistant coach Jon Greenwood) did a good job of managing my ice time.
"Six months without a game was tough. It wears on the mind, for sure. It was definitely nice to get into it."
Alexis Gravel made 32 saves in the Mooseheads' 3-0 shutout of the Armada.
"He stepped up big," Trepanier said. "He's playing really good lately so we're lucky to have him. It's good for his confidence to get that shutout."
After the weekend results, the Mooseheads are now 13-12-2-1 and the Islanders improve to 1510-4-0.
"The only thing that's disappointing is this is a team we're trying to creep up on (in the standings)," Daigneault said. "We had two games in hand and we were only five points back. I thought today was a big game for us but ... we let that one slip by."
The Mooseheads' next game is on Friday at home against the Cape Breton Eagles.
Eagles 5, Wildcats 4: In Sydney, Ryan Francis's second goal of the game stood up as the winner in a tight game against Moncton.
Brooklyn Kalmikov, Shawn Boudrias and Mathias Laferriere were the other Cape Breton scorers and William Grimard made 36 saves.
Jakob Pelletier had two goals for the Wildcats and Zachary L'Heureux and Mika Cyr scored one each. Olivier Rodrigue stopped 28 shots in the Moncton net.