Herd Word

Photo - Wikipedia

WORLD JUNIORS
There isn't officially a Halifax Mooseheads representative that will be playing at the 2025 World Juniors but alum forward Mathieu Cataford was named last week to Team Canada's roster for the annual holiday tournament. He is one of only two QMJHL players on the team. It is the first time that the 19-year-old will wear the red and white in his career. Meanwhile, Herd rookie defenceman Carlos Handel was invited to Germany's selection camp and will be hoping to prove himself that he deserves to be on the final team. 

Teams don't have to submit their final roster until late Christmas Eve. Congrats to Cataford on making Team Canada and good luck to Handel at the selection camp with Team Germany. 

SPRYNAR
Forward Jan Sprynar has made the decision to not return to the Mooseheads after the Christmas break and has signed a contract with HC Verva Litvinov in Czechia to continue his career. The 19-year-old will play professionally in his home country after recovering from an upper-body injury that he sustained on December 6th. He had 9 points for Halifax this season and a total of 29 points in 47 games for the club since being acquired by the Herd at last year's trade deadline. 

Thank you Jan for your contributions in Moose Country and good luck with your new team. 

MOOSE TRACKS
Episode 4 of the second season of Moose Tracks has been released on the team's YouTube channel but you can find it below. This one includes scenes from Liam Kilfoil's billet house, captain Brady Schultz on a ride to the game and Shawn Carrier discussing his move to Halifax. 

BARRON
Former Herd defenceman Justin Barron is on the move again. The 23-year-old was traded to the Nashville Predators on Wednesday by the Montreal Canadiens and will be back with former teammate Zach L'Heureux. After being drafted by Colorado 25th overall in the 2020 NHL draft, the Halifax, NS native has played 111 games in the top professional league so far with all but two of those for Montreal. Barron has scored 1 goal only in 17 games played in 2024-25 but has 13 goals and 31 points in his career. 

Good luck to Justin in Nashville. 

Photo - LeNouvelliste.ch

POINT LEADERS
There are a few Moose alumni who sit on top of some different leagues at the time of this writing. James Swan (2020-2022) leads all former Herd players in points so far this season with a total of 56 points but is third in the QJHL in 28 games suiting up for the Valleyfield Braves. Star Nathan MacKinnon (2011-2013) became the first NHL player to hit 50 points in 2024-25 and he actually recorded his 600th career assist on December 10 against Pittsburgh. The 29-year-old has 13 goals and 37 assists in 33 games. Forward Peter Reynolds is tied for the AUS league lead at the Christmas break with 29 points (16G & 13A) for the top-ranked UNB Reds. He and teammate Benjamin Corbeil actually lead all of the U-Sports players and this is only his first year of university hockey. 

Another forward that is tied for a league lead is Samuel Asselin (2018-2019), who decided to move to Europe to play pro hockey in the summer and seems like it was the right choice. The 26-year-old has 44 points (19G & 25A) for HC Sierre in the SL. His current teammate Josh Lawrence (2022-2023) is third in scoring with 36 points in 30 games played. Meanwhile, Randy Gazzola is the defensive leader of the ICEHL while suiting up for Asiago. 

PODCAST
The third episode of the new podcast "This is Moose Country" was released today and includes guest appearances by newcomer Quinn Kennedy and veteran Owen Phillips. 

MURPHY
There might be more stories like this one regarding alum but its the only one I have seen recently. Former Herd d-man Matt Murphy has been acquired by the Lake Tahoe Knight Monsters in the ECHL from the Cincinnati Cyclones. Murphy skated in 20 games for the Cyclones in 2024-25, scoring two goals and adding six assists. The 29-year-old has suited up for multiple teams since spending five years at UNB and was able to win a professional title with the Fort Wayne Komets in 2021. 

UP NEXT
The QMJHL is on Christmas break and the winter trade period opened on Monday. Our Halifax Mooseheads will be back on the ice on December 28 visiting the Acadie-Bathurst Titan at 7pm. The Herd will be looking to end a losing streak against the Titan as they are 0-2-2-0 versus Bathurst this season. Halifax will then head to Sydney to take on the Cape Breton Eagles on December 30 before the two clubs battle each other again in Moose Country the following afternoon to finish 2024. Puck drops at 2:00 p.m., tickets are still available. 

Mooseheads Make Trade with Rimouski

Photo - Journal Le Soir

The Halifax Mooseheads moved two players on the opening day of the winter trade period. Forward Lou Levesque and defenceman Jack Martin were traded to the Rimouski Oceanic yesterday and in return the Herd received right winger Quinn Kennedy plus a 2026 second round pick. 

Although it might not have been the most expected trade by the fans, it is a good move for the players as Levesque and Kennedy will be closer to home. Kennedy is a native of Upper Tantallon, NS and was selected by Rimouski 9th overall in the 2022 QMJHL draft. The 18-year-old scored 21 goals and recorded 45 points last season and has 16 points already in 2024-25. He is known for his offensive abilities. 

Photo - CHL website

Levesque meanwhile, requested to be closer to his family and Cam Russell was able to accommodate that request. The 18-year-old had 12 goals and 33 points in 2023-24 during his rookie season. He become a fan favourite in Moose Country over the last year and a half. Martin was drafted by Halifax 55th overall in 2021 and played 152 games for the Herd. The Upper Covedale, NB native had a career-high 13 points in the 2022-23 season and was on his way to pass that total as he recorded 12 points in 30 games this year. 

"We're excited to get a player of Quinn's calibre. He was a high draft pick who has an excellent skill set. Quinn's abilities will be a nice addition on our power play unit. I know he's also very excited to play for his hometown team," said GM Russell.

Good luck to Lou and Jack with the Oceanic as they battle for the Memorial Cup and thank you boys for playing your hearts out while in Halifax. Welcome to Moose Country Quinn, we look forward to watching you continue your career here. 

QMJHL Names Scholastic POM

Every month, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League announces a Scholastic Player of the Month which recognizes a player on each team with his performance on ice and in the classroom. The player is selected based on their school results, their implication, the school-hockey conciliation, their team spirit and their on-ice performances. 

For your Halifax Mooseheads, Shawn Carrier was named the Scholastic Player of the Month for November. 

Team	Player	Program	Academic establishment
Baie-Comeau Drakkar	Anthony Lavoie	Sciences humaines	CÉGEP de Baie-Comeau
Acadie-Bathurst Titan	Blake Pilgrim-Edwards	Business	Acadia University
Blainville-Boisbriand Armada	Olivier Metcalfe	Sciences humaines	Collège Lionel-Groulx
Cape Breton Eagles	Aiden McCullough	High School	Sydney Academy
Charlottetown Islanders	Logan Biser	High School	Ontario Virtuel School
Chicoutimi Saguenéens	Colby Train	Independant	UNB – University of New Brunswick
Drummondville Voltigeurs	Vincent Tremblay	Sciences de la nature	CÉGEP de Drummondville
Gatineau Olympiques	Simon-Xavier Cyr	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Halifax Mooseheads	Shawn Carrier	Grade 12	Woodlawn High School
Moncton Wildcats	Simon Mullen	Golf Management	McMaster University
Québec Remparts	Charlie Morrison	Grade 12	NPU – Northern Pre-University
Rimouski Océanic	William Lacelle	Secondaire 5	Collège Sainte-Anne
Rouyn-Noranda Huskies	Harijs Cjunskis	Grade 11 – 12	NPU – Northern Pre-University
Shawinigan Cataractes	Noah McKinnon	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Sherbrooke Phoenix	Thomas Rousseau	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Saint John Sea Dogs	Nate Tivey	Independant	UNB – University of New Brunswick
Val-d’Or Foreurs	Benjamin Olivier	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Victoriaville Tigres	Justin Gendron	Indépendant	UNB – University of New Brunswick

Stats Sunday: November

Games played: 10
Record: 3-6-1-0, 7pts
Goals for/against: 20/36
Powerplay*: 14.4%
Penalty kill*: 81.1%
Shutouts: None

Top 5 leading scorers
Points: Liam Kilfoil 7, Logan Crosby 5, Owen Phillips 5, Antoine Fontaine 4, Lou Levesque 4 
Goals: Liam Kilfoil 4, Logan Crosby 3, Jan Sprynar 3, Daniel Walters 1, Owen Phillips 1
Assists: Owen Phillips 4, Liam Kilfoil 3, Antoine Fontaine 3, Lou Levesque 3, Shawn Carrier 3
Penalty minutes: Logan Crosby 12, Braeden MacPhee 7, Jack Martin 6, Jan Sprynar 6, Daniel Walters 6
Plus/minus: Eddy Doyle +2, Justin Breton +1, Lou Levesque E, Braeden MacPhee -1, Lincoln Waugh -1
Rookie scoring: Daniel Walters 2pts, Amelio Santini 2pts, Eddy Doyle 1pt, Patrick McNab 1pt, Carlos Handel 1pt

Goaltender stats*
Mathis Rousseau     8-11-3-0     3.05 GAA     0.908 SAV%
Jack Milner     2-2-0-0     4.23 GAA     0.881 SAV%

*overall

Herd Word

WORLD U17
Halifax Mooseheads associate coach Brad MacKenzie assisted Canada White to a gold medal at the 2024 World U17 Hockey Challenge earlier this month in Sarnia. In the six team tournament, Canada White defeated Czechia and lost to Sweden in overtime during the preliminary round. It was an all Canada championship match. Congrats to Brad and the rest of Canada White on becoming the U17 champions. 

Photo - Hockey Canada website

NCAA RULE CHANGE
In a big move, the NCAA voted a couple weeks ago that players who have skated for any of the CHL teams will be allowed to play collegiate hockey in the USA effective August 1, 2025. Previously, CHL players had been considered professionals and barred because of the NCAA's amateurism rules, in part because some CHL have signed NHL entry-level contracts according to the NHL website. While it'll probably increase the pool of talented American players (or Canadians wanting to play college hockey in the States) for the QMJHL, OHL and WHL, it sounds like it could be detrimental to other junior leagues in the country. Universities in Canada will likely feel the affect of this rule change as well. One example of this already is star goaltender for the Moncton Wildcats, Jacob Steinman announced his commitment to play for the Bowling Green Falcons in 2024-25. 

Photo - Predators X

L'HEUREUX IN NHL
Former Herd forward Zachary L'Heureux made his NHL debut on October 22 and has been able to stay up in top league ever since with the Nashville Predators. The 21-year-old scored his first NHL goal on Monday. L'Heureux, a native of Montreal, QC, has an additional three assists for a total of 4 points in 15 games played. Congrats to Zach. 

ATTENDANCE
Despite being in a rebuild year, fans in Moose Country are still showing up - at least according to official numbers. The average attendance so far this season of 7,815 is fourth most in team history through the first 10 games. The top three seasons are 2012-13 (8,270) when the team was projected to win the President's Cup, 2018-19 (8,131) and 1999-00 (8,078). Both of the latter seasons were years that the Mooseheads were Memorial Cup hosts. In the summer, the club announced that season ticket holder seats were sold out so that is great considering the Mooseheads didn't have the hype that those other teams did. Whether it's the new arena features and added in-game experiences or the fact that the lineup on the ice has been competitive most games or the fact that half of the matches have been against Quebec teams, nice to see the fans continuing to support the team. 

MOOSE TRACKS
Episode 3 of Moose Tracks is up on YouTube now but you can watch below. I guess I never shared the first two but you can watch Episode 1 and Episode 2 on the team's channel as well. I believe they only did four episodes last season, so hopefully since this is the third one already they will be doing more this season. 

TREY LEWIS
Not sure if this was talked about in the above mentioned podcast but Willy Palov posted last week that a new biography about former captain Trey Lewis has hit bookstore shelves. The book is written in french and has been a project for New Brunswick native Bruno Richard since 2020. Richard said he conducted more than 50 interviews of Lewis's friends, former teammates and others who know him best according to the article. 

If you know french and enjoy hockey biographies, keep a look out for the book titled Mon idole, Trey Lewis at a store near you. 

Photo - Herd website

NEW TEAM THINGS
The club has announced a few new adventures this month and it began with the unveiling of a new bus. It features individual leather captain's chairs along with a new window layout and redesigned interior lighting which will provide a better passenger experience on their long road trips. Halifax also opened up a new physical team store that is at Mic Mac Mall in Dartmouth. Fans can get everything that has been sold on the online shop the last few years but I think the store has a few small additional items. I checked it out today and they have some nice displays so check it out if you need to do some Christmas shopping. The store will be open during mall hours Monday-Friday. 

Scott MacIntosh and former Herd player Brad Cuzner launched the new Mooseheads podcast on Wednesday as well. I'm not sure how often they will put out a new episode but the first one is up on the team's YouTube channel now. Mooseheads ultimate tough guy Trey Lewis was a guest for this week, discussing his career with Halifax and what he has been up to since he graduated junior hockey. Check it out here. 

Game Day 18: vs. Baie-Comeau

It will be a special game this evening as our Halifax Mooseheads host league-leading scorer Justin Poirier and the Baie-Comeau Drakkar for DND Appreciation Night. The Mooseheads will be honouring the military tonight as they continue to raise money for the Camp Hill Veterans Memorial Hospital by wearing themed jerseys and auctioning them off after the match. Halifax has struggled as of late but it isn't unexpected especially with the club dealing with injuries as well. Goaltender Mathis Rousseau has given the guys in front of him a chance pretty much every match he has started and the rest of the team have been competitive mostly. They will need to have another strong complete game as Baie-Comeau is coming into this one on a five game win streak. Like I previously mentioned, the Drakkar also have the current league-leading scorer in Poirier who has 30 points in sixteen games played. 

Game coverage
TV: Webcast | Radio: News 95.7 | Live: @MC_MooseCountry

Overall records
Drakkar: 12-5-1-0 = 25 points (2nd in East division, 4th overall)
Mooseheads: 8-7-2-0 = 18 points (4th in Maritimes division, 12th overall)

Leading scorers
HAL: Liam Kilfoil 15pts (6G & 9A), Shawn Carrier 13pts (6G & 7A), Antoine Fontaine 11pts (5G & 6A)

BAC: Justin Poirier 30pts (17G & 13A), Matyas Melovsky 23pts (7G & 16A), Louis-Charles Plourde 22pts (14G & 8A)

Head-to-head
This is the first game between these two clubs this season. Halifax had a 1-0-1-0 record versus the Drakkar last season while Baie-Comeau went 1-0-1-0 as well against the Mooseheads. Their last matchup was November 23, 2023 where Baie-Comeau won 4-3 in overtime in Halifax who was led by Markus Vidicek recording 2 goals and an assist. 

Out of town
Oceanic vs. Sea Dogs - 5:00 p.m.

Huskies vs. Armada - 5:00 p.m.

Foreurs vs. Tigres - 5:00 p.m.

Eagles vs. Islanders - 7:00 p.m.

Next game

Halifax will finish their four game homestand tomorrow afternoon when they welcome the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. Puck drops at 3 p.m. 

QMJHL Names Scholastic POM

Every month, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League announces a Scholastic Player of the Month which recognizes a player on each team with his performance on ice and in the classroom. The player is selected based on their school results, their implication, the school-hockey conciliation, their team spirit and their on-ice performances. 

For your Halifax Mooseheads, Patrick McNab was named the Scholastic Player of the Month for October. 

Team	Player	Program	Academic Establishment
Acadie-Bathurst Titan	Mathis Langevin	Formation générale	CÉGEP à distance
Baie-Comeau Drakkar	Mathys Routhier	Sciences humaines	CÉGEP Baie-Comeau
Blainville-Boisbriand Armada	Matéo Nobert	Grade 12	Northern Pre-University
Cape Breton Eagles	Romain L’italien	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Charlottetown Islanders	Maxwell Jardine	Business Fegree	PEI University
Chicoutimi Saguenéens	Alex Huang	Sciences de la nature	CÉGEP de Chicoutimi
Drummondville Voltigeurs	Luke Woodworth	Général	Université de Frédéricton
Gatineau Olympiques	Gabriel Séguin	Sciences humaines	CÉGEP de l’Outaouais
Halifax Mooseheads	Patrick McNab	Grade 12	Woodlawn High School
Moncton Wildcats	Isaiah Shantz	Science	University of New Brunswick
Québec Remparts	Loïc Goyette	Science humaine profil administration	CÉGEP Limoilou
Rimouski Océanic	Anthony Paré	Science humaine	CÉGEP de Rimouski
Rouyn-Noranda Huskies	Samuel Rousseau	Tremplin DEC	Cégep à distance
Saint John Sea Dogs	Olivier Duhamel	Secondaire 5	Académie Les Estacades
Shawinigan Cataractes	Mathieu Plante	Sciences humaines et Gestion des affaires	CÉGEP Shawinigan
Sherbrooke Phoenix	Elias Pedrotti	Grade 12 – Sciences	Northern Pre-University
Val-d’Or Foreurs	Connor Macey	Construction Management	St-Mary’s University
Victoriaville Tigres	Mathis Aguilar	Technique compt. et gestion	CÉGEP Victoriaville