Stopped at the blue-line
Summerside native Noah Dobson, centre, tries to split the Charlottetown Islanders defence of Daniel Hardie, left, and Xavier Bernard during Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action Saturday in front of 3,224 people at the Eastlink Centre. It was Dobson’s second game with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies since being acquired in a trade from Acadie-Bathurst Titan. Rafael Harvey-Pinard scored the equalizer with 15 seconds left in regulation and the top-ranked Huskies defeated the Charlottetown Islanders 5-4 in a shootout. “We’re disappointed that we couldn’t close the deal with 15 seconds left, but deep down, as a coach, I’m ecstatic,” Islanders bench boss Jim Hulton said. “We proved a point to ourselves, and a lot of other people, that, when we play the game the right way, we can go toe-to-toe with the big dogs.” Alex Beaucage had a pair of goals in the win while Louis-Filip Cote added one. Joel Teasdale and Felix Bibeau each had two assists while Harvey-Pinard, Beaucage and Peter Abbandonato had singles. Lukas Cormier scored twice for the Islanders while Daniel Hardie and Liam Peyton had singles. Peyton’s goal came off a Hunter Drew pass that sent him in on goalie Zachary Emond with Dobson trying to get back in the play. Drew had three assists while Brett Budgell had two and Maher and Thomas Casey added singles. Samuel Harvey stopped all 17 shots he faced in relief of Emond, who was pulled after allowing four goals on 11 shots in 32:04. Welsh made 28 saves in the Islanders crease. Rouyn-Noranda improved to a league-leading 34-7-0-1 while Charlottetown is 25-11-2-2. The Islanders played in Moncton on Sunday but results were unavailable at press time.