WJC: Fuc'd

Venue: Malmo Isstadion

RECAP - Zach Fucale stopped 13 shots in the first period to give Team Canada a chance to get their legs underneath them as the red and white only had 6 shots on net in the first 20 minutes en route to a 3-2 win over biggest rivals Team USA on New Year's Eve. The always interesting NYE game between the two North American rivals was just as big as any other year it has been as the winner would get top spot in Group A. The Canadians needed a win in regulation to win the group while the US needed any kind of point to win their group. After letting in the first goal for the 4th straight game (and 7th overall if you include pre-competition games) the Canadians rode the performance by their goaltender to a 3-1 lead with less than 5 to go in the game. Fucale let in a light goal that should have been stopped by his glove, to make the fans in the arena and at home nervous but a breakaway stop with about 45 seconds left got everyone hopping.

GAME LOG
First period
None

Second period
3:29 USA Riley Barber (1), SH | A: Jacob Slavin & Kerdiles
12:19 CAN Nic Petan (3) | A: Mantha

Third period
3:54 CAN Connor McDavid (1) | A: Horvat & Morrissey
6:13 CAN Curtis Lazar (2), PP | A: Drouin & Pouliot
17:15 USA Stefan Matteau (1) | A: Fasching & Butcher

Shots: 1st - 12-6 United States, 2nd - 11-7 Canada, 3rd - 7-7 tie
Powerplay: Canada 1-for-5, United States 0-for-3
Goaltenders: Zach Fucale (CAN) vs. Jon Gillies (USA)
Sellout: No

Players of the Game
Riley Barber USA
Zach Fucale CAN

GAMEDAY 40: at Cape Breton

IT'S GAMEDAY

CAPE BRETON SCREAMING EAGLES vs. HALIFAX MOOSEHEADS

Puck drops at 7:00pm

Centre 200 (5,000) ~ Sydney, NS

PREVIEW - After an insane game last night in Halifax, what will we see in Sydney in the second half of the home and home Battle of Nova Scotia series? We will have to wait and see. The Mooseheads will be looking to end 2013 with two straight wins after losing four straight.


This is the fifth game of this Nova Scotian battle. The home team has won all 4 games so far this season.  

THE NUMBERS

Leading scorers
CAP: Cameron Darcy 51pts (22G & 29A), William Carrier 39pts (11G & 28A), Charles-Eric Legare 32pts (15G & 17A)
HAL: Jonathan Drouin 50pts (17G & 33A), Nikolaj Ehlers 49pts (22G & 27A), Darcy Ashley 41pts (14G & 27A)

LAST GAMES
The two teams met yesterday evening at the Metro Centre with the home team winning 5-3. Nikolaj Ehlers scored two goals and Kevin Darveau made 42 saves during the game while Chase Marchand made 14 saves and Justin Hache had 2 assists.

HEAD-TO-HEAD
This season    2-2-0-0    17GF    15GA
September 22  Mooseheads 2 at Eagles 5
October 15  Eagles 3 at Mooseheads 7
November 29  Mooseheads 3 at Eagles 4
December 28  Eagles 3 at Mooseheads 5
December 29 @ 7pm  Mooseheads at Eagles
January 25 @ 7pm  Eagles at Mooseheads
February 12 @ 7pm  Eagles at Mooseheads
March 4 @ 7pm  Mooseheads at Eagles
March 15 @ 7pm  Eagles at Mooseheads
Last season     8-0-0-0    25GF    16GA

NOT PLAYING - Darcy Ashley, Andrew Ryan, Luca Ciampini and Brendan Duke will be out of the lineup because of injuries

OUT OF TOWN
Huskies at Titan - 3:00pm
Sea Dogs at Wildcats - 4:00pm
Olympiques at Armada - 5:00pm
Drakkar at Sagueneens - 5:00pm
Phoenix at Voltigeurs - 5:00pm
Foreurs at Huskies - 5:00pm
Cataractes at Tigres - 5:00pm
Remparts at Oceanic - 8:00pm

GAME COVERAGE
Live: @HFXMooseheads
TV: None
Radio: News 95.7
Webcast: TELUS
Post-game: The Chronicle Herald, Cape Breton Post

AFTER THE GAME
The Mooseheads will come back home to battle the Charlottetown Islanders on Friday night. Puck drops at 7pm.

POSTGAME: Eagles 3, Mooseheads 5

MC POST-GAME
Eagles can't keep two goal lead in third period

HALIFAX - Rookie Nikolaj Ehlers made his return to Moose Country well worth it. 

The Canadian Press' recap: The Mooseheads scored four unanswered goals in the third period to hand Cape Breton its fourth loss in a row.

Halifax Metro's recap: Understandably, Cavan Fitzgerald was a bundle of nerves before making his QMJHL debut with the Halifax Mooseheads on Saturday evening (at home, no less).

The Q News' recap: In his return to Halifax, Danish forward Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice leading the Mooseheads to a 5-3 victory over the Cape Breton Screaming on Saturday night in the first segment of the annual Battle of Nova Scotia in front of 9,624 fans at the Halifax Metro Centre.

halifaxmooseheads.ca's recap: What a turn of events.

capebretoneagles.com's recap: Cavan Fitzgerald's goal at 15:06 of the third period proved to be the game winner as the Halifax Mooseheads got by the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles 5-3 in front of 9,624 fans on hand at the Halifax Metro Centre on Saturday.

MISSING IN ACTION: Andrew Ryan (hurt), Darcy Ashley (hurt), Ryan Falkenham (hip), Jonathan Drouin (World Juniors), Luca Ciampini (hurt), Brendan Duke (whiplash) and Zach Fucale (World Juniors) were scratched for the Mooseheads while Matthew Donnelly, Jason Bell, Bradley Lalonde and Michael Lyle were not in the lineup for Cape Breton

COMEBACK
The Mooseheads came back from a 3-1 deficit in the third period. Four goals in the last twenty minutes by the home team was the difference in this game.

BATTLE OF NS
It was the annual Battle of NS event which is held by the two Nova Scotian teams the weekend after Christmas break. The team's home special blue game worn jerseys are raffled off to fans in support of NS Special Olympics.

SHOTS
Halifax was overly outshot by Cape Breton last night through two periods as shots after 40 minutes were 37 to 12 in favour of the Eagles.

FITZGERALD 
Rookie Cavan Fitzgerald who was called up late last week scored his first QMJHL career goal in his first career game. With so many injuries and two of the top players on the team in Europe, Fitzgerald and Mike Molloy were called up for this weekends games. Cavan also received 2nd star honors.

EHLERS
Nikolaj Ehlers returned to Metro Centre ice last night after helping his home country Denmark to a perfect 5 and 0 record at the Division 1 Group A and was part of the third period comeback. Ehlers scored the tying goal and an empty net goal that sealed the deal. It was his 7th two goal game.

DARVEAU 
Kevin Darveau was certainly the busier of the 2 goaltenders in round one of the 2013 Battle of NS. Darveau stopped 42 pucks during the game. He was named the first star of the game.

OTHER SCORES
Chicoutimi 2 - 1 Baie-Comeau
Victoriaville 5 - 3 Shawinigan
Drummondville 5 - 2 Sherbrooke
Bathurst 0 - 4 Charlottetown
Moncton 5 - 4 Saint John
Blainville 2 - 4 Gatineau
Rimouski 4 - 5 Quebec OT
Rouyn-Noranda 4 - 5 Val-d'Or OT

UP NEXT 
The two teams meet again tonight in Cape Breton for the second round of the Battle of Nova Scotia. Puck drops at 7pm.

Ehlers Power Blue Moose.

Rookie Nikolaj Ehlers made his return to Moose Country well worth it. Ehlers helped his Quebec Major League team to a 5-3 win over the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles in the annual Battle of Nova Scotia home and home series where special blue jerseys get raffled to help Special Olympics. Nikolaj scored the tying goal midway through the third period. The Mooseheads were down 3 to 1 going into the last 20 minutes of the game before MacKenzie Weegar started the come back just a few minutes into the last period. Ehlers added a shorthanded empty net goal to seal the deal for the home team. Rookie call up Cavan Fitzgerald scored his first career goal to give the team the lead.

FINAL: Eagles 3 at Mooseheads 5
50/50 Winning Draw: $10,879 
Three stars: 3. Hache CAP | 2. Fitzgerald HAL | 1. Darveau HAL
Attendance: 9,624
MC Top Herd: Kevin Darveau

GAME LOG
First period
7:54 CAP Julien Pelletier (12), PP | A: Leveille & Hache
15:08 CAP Charles-Eric Legare (15), PP | A: Darcy & Beaudry

Penalties: Hardie HAL (6:23, Elbowing), Moynihan HAL (14:25, Holding)
Shots: Cape Breton out shoots Halifax 14 to 5

Second period
12:18 HAL Vincent Watt (2) | A: Molloy
16:42 CAP Williams Carrier (11) | A: Leveille & Hache

Penalties: None
Shots: Mooseheads outshot big time in middle frame 23-7

Third period
3:33 HAL MacKenzie Weegar (8) | A: None
12:50 HAL Nikolaj Ehlers (21), PP | A: Weegar & Andrews
15:06 HAL Cavan Fitzgerald (1) | A: Shewfelt & D. Moynihan
19:45 HAL Nikolaj Ehlers (22), EN/SH | A: Hardie

Penalties: Leveille CAP (12:17, Delay of game), Lindsay HAL (16:34, High-sticking), Lindsay HAL (16:34, High-sticking)
Shots: Gap was closer 8-7 Eagles in third, 45 to 19 for Cape Breton overall

GOALIES
Winning goaltender: Kevin Darveau HAL 42 saves
Losing goaltender: Chase Marchand CAP 14 saves

POWERPLAY
Halifax: 1-for-1
Cape Breton: 2-for-4

WJC: Comebacks Fall Short.

Venue: Malmo Isstadion

RECAP - Jonathan Drouin scores to tie it up a second time but his Team Canada couldn't with stand the Czechs who kept pushing and getting one pass Jake Paterson every time the Canadians were able to even it. For the 5th straight game, which includes pre-competition games, Canada gave up the first goal of the game. Drouin also had an assist on the 4th goal to send it to overtime. The third period was quite interesting. Drouin's goal was scored 24 seconds into the third period to make the score 2-2 and after the Czechs made it 3-2, the teams traded goals in less than 2 minutes in the last ten minutes of the game. Overtime solved nothing so for the first time in the tournament this year, we went to a shootout as well. Jonathan scored the first goal in the penalty shot portion while Paterson was unable to save all 3 shots from Czech Republic.

GAME LOG
First period
7:10 CZE David Kampf (1) | A: Kase
15:50 CAN Sam Reinhart (2), PP | A: Horvat & McDavid

Second period
17:16 CZE Michal Plutnar (1), PP | A: None

Third period
0:24 CAN Jonathan Drouin (1), PP | A: Reinhart & Mantha
4:07 CZE Vojteck Tomecek (1) | A: None
11:09 CAN Aaron Ekblad (1), SH | A: Laughton & LAzar
12:19 CZE Jakub Vrana (1), PP | A: None
13:01 CAN Charles Hudon (1) | A: Mantha & Drouin

Overtime
None

Shootout
Round 1: CAN Drouin | CZE Kase
Round 2: CAN Petan | CZE Pastrnak
Round 3: CAN McDavid | CZE Simon

Shots: 1st - 13-5 Canada, 2nd - 11-5 Czech Republic, 3rd - 12-11 Czech Republic
Powerplay: Czech Republic 2-for-5, Canada 2-for-5
Goaltenders: Marek Langhanner (CZE) vs. Jake Paterson (CAN)
Sellout: No

Players of the Game
Jonathan Drouin CAN
Petr Sidlik CZE

CONFIRMED Boudreau traded again.

Former Mooseheads player Matt Boudreau has been traded once again. A month and a half ago it announced that Boudreau had been traded from Shawinigan to Victoriaville.

Now for the third time in 2013, Matt is back in Atlantic Canada after Victoriaville traded him to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan before Christmas. The trade was made official today. 

Us fans will only see Boudreau once more unless he gets traded for a fourth time. The Titan come to Moose Country on January 11th. The two teams will meet three more times afterwards this season all of which will be played at the K.C. centre. Once again good luck Matt in a new city.

WJC: Mantha Scores Hat Trick.

Venue: Malmo Isstadion 

RECAP - Anthony Mantha scores a hat trick. Brent Sutter stays perfect as coach. Jonathan Drouin has 3 assists. Connor McDavid gets chances. How can you ask for a better start to the 2014 World Juniors? Germany not scoring the first goal and tying it up at two with 4 minutes left in the first period. But the Canadians rebounded on the back of Mantha and Drouin who combined for 6 points and led the team to a 7-2 win over the Germans. Despite the big gap in the score, the Germans weren't manhandled like normal as they were only outshot 30 to 24.

GAME LOG
First period
1:35 GER Dorian Saeftel (1) | A: Palausch & Klopper
6:21 CAN Josh Anderson (1) | A: Gauthier & Dumba
10:41 CAN Anthony Mantha (1), PP | A: Lazar & Drouin
15:59 GER Janik Moser (1), PP | A: Kahun
17:36 CAN Anthony Mantha (2) | A: Pouliot & Drouin
18:29 CAN Bo Horvat (1) | A: Reinhart

Second period
6:45 CAN Sam Reinhart (1) | A: Morrissey & McDavid
11:28 CAN Anthony Mantha (3), PP | A: Drouin & Pouliot

Third period
10:13 CAN Nic Petan (1) | A: McDavid

Shots: 1st - 12-8 Canada, 2nd - 11-9 Canada, 3rd - 7-7 tie
Powerplay: Canada 2-for-5, Germany 1-for-3
Goaltenders: Jake Paterson (CAN) vs. Marvin Cupper (GER)
Sellout: No

Players of the game
Janik Moser GER
Anthony Mantha CAN

WJC: Team Canada roster

Though they announced their final cut on Tuesday, we now have the official list of Canadian junior players that will represent their country starting tomorrow in Malmo, Sweden. Along with the other 9 teams, Team Canada gave the committee who runs this tournament their final roster today.

There are 3 draft eligible players while the rest of the 22 man roster have been drafted already. Canada is headlined by forward Connor McDavid, who was granted special status at 15 years old to enter the Ontario Hockey League. He becomes the sixth 16 year old to make the World Junior team for the red and white. There's also a pair of brothers in the Reinharts, defenceman Griffin and his younger draft eligible brother Sam who is a forward.

Scott Laughton, Jonathan Drouin and Matt Dumba will provide the leadership during the 11 day tournament as captain and alternate captains. Jake Paterson, Griffin Reinhart and Drouin are the only returnees from last years team that came back in 4th place. This team may not be as star studded or as big as in years previuos but Brent Sutter has led two Team Canada junior teams to gold with perfect records in back to back years after the country failed to win a gold medal in 7 straight years and he will look to do it again as anything less than gold will be a disappointment to the fans.

ROSTER.

Below is a list of the players, their number and position:
1      Jake Paterson        G
2      Adam Pelech         D
3      Chris Bigras           D
5      Aaron Ekblad        D
7      Josh Morrissey      D
8      Griffin Reinhart      D
10    Charles Hudon      F
11    Bo Horvat             F
14    Taylor Leier          F
15    Derrick Pouliot      D
16    Kerby Rychel        F
17    Connor McDavid   F
19    Nic Petan               F
21    Scott Laughton       F
22    Frederick Gauthier  F
23    Sam Reinhart          F
24    Matt Dumba           D
25    Josh Anderson       F
26    Curtis Lazar            F
27    Jonathan Drouin      F
28    Anthony Mantha     F
31    Zach Fucale            G

For all the rosters click here.

Merry Christmas Moose Country

From your favourite Moose fan (kidding) to your family I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. 

Enjoy this time with your family and friends and of course watching a couple of our boys play the best sport in the world (in my opinion); hockey. Boxing Day begins the 2014 World Juniors in Sweden. Go Canada Go! 

As I have been blogging for 13 months now I would also like to say thank you very much for reading my blog and following my tweets and Facebook posts this past year. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

WJC: Denmark Gets Promoted, Hosts Get Demoted.

Team Denmark will be coming to Canada for 2015. The Danes defeated Slovenia 4-2 in the first game on the final day of competition to stay undefeated and get promoted to the Top Division for the 2015 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Canada next December.

Nikolaj Ehlers from your Mooseheads collected another point; the first assist on what was the team's second goal of the game that made it 2-0 Denmark with 1:16 left in the second period. Nikolaj finished the tournament with 2 goals and 4 assists for 6 points which was good enough for 9th in overall scoring.

Host Poland gets relegated to Division 1 Group B play for next year's championships. Poland received only one point in a shootout loss to Slovenia on December 18.

Here are the full standings from Group A
Denmark   5-0-0-0    15 points
Latvia   4-0-0-1    12 points
Belarus   3-0-0-2    9 points
Austria   2-0-0-3    6 points
Slovenia   0-1-0-4    2 points
Poland   0-0-1-4    1 point

WJC: Cuts made at Juniors

Press Release.

Story.

Team Canada has made two cuts to their World Junior team that is in Sweden for the 2014 World Juniors which will begin for real on Thursday. Hunter Shinkaruk and Damon Severson were told after today's pre-tournament game versus Finland that they would be going back home. Shinkaruk plays for Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League while Severson plays in Kelowna with the Rockets in the same league.

The Canadians defeated the Finns 4 to 2 after being behind 2-0 in the first 13 minutes. Zach Fucale made 28 saves for the win. Canada will play two more pre-tournament games. One more cut will be made before the tournament gets underway.

WJC: Ehlers Helps Denmark Win.

Day five of the 2014 World Juniors Division 1 Group A tournament got underway early this morning with a game between the only two undefeated teams left, Denmark and Latvia. Going into yesterday's action Belarus, Denmark and Latvia sat tied a top the group with 2 wins each while the other three teams had none. After the Danes beat Belarus 5 to 4 yesterday and Latvia shutout Austria 3-0 there was only two teams with no losses.

Rookie forward Nikolaj Ehlers of your Halifax Mooseheads scored what turned out to be the game winner at 17:03 of the second period to give the Danes a 2-0 lead heading into the third. Latvia would score less than 5 minutes into the last period but could not get anything more past goaltender Georg Sorensen as Denmark went on to win 4 to 1. With the win, Ehlers team has a perfect 4-0 record and sits in perfect position to be promoted to the Top Division for next year. Denmark will play Slovenia tomorrow. Slovenia who currently has a 0-1-0-2 record and is playing Austria right now.

PS: Nikolaj has 3 goals and 1 assist for 4 points and sits 12th among scoring leaders.

WJC: BREAKING Team Canada names captains

Hockey Canada has named the captains for the 2014 World Junior team which will begin pre-tournament play tomorrow morning. Scott Laughton of the Oshawa Generals was named the Team Captain for the tournament. Matt Dumba of the Minnesota Wild (NHL) and Jonathan Drouin of your Halifax Mooseheads were named the Alternates.

Laughton, who is in his 4th year with the Generals, was named captain of Team OHL in the Subway Super Series back in November. He has 24 goals and 26 assists for 50 points in 29 games played which is good enough for 8th in OHL scoring. Matt Dumba has played for the Wild of the National Hockey League all season and has collected 2 points in 13 games as a professional defenceman. Jonathan Drouin has played in only 23 of the Mooseheads 36 games this season but leads the team in scoring with 50 points (17G & 33A). Drouin was cleared to play on Monday and was at practice that day. Big Jo was also the captain of Team QMJHL at the Super Series.

Congratulations to all three players and especially Jonathan. Go Canada Go.

FUCALE TO START FRIDAY, DROUIN SCRATCHED
It was also announced today that goaltender Zach Fucale will get the start tomorrow against Finland in the first pre-tournament game for both teams. Camp is still going for players trying to crack the roster that will play thorugh out the tournament starting Boxing Day but the goaltending positions have been sown up as only two goalies were invited. However they will have to fight for the starting position. Mark Masters breaks that battle down here.

After suffering a concussion almost 2 weeks ago in a game against the Quebec Remparts, in which the hitter was not suspended, Jonathan Drouin is slowly making his way back to playing. He practiced with the team this week however they are easing him into game action. As such, Brent Sutter announced that Drouin will not play tomorrow versus the Finns.

MC World Junior Coverage

Moose Country, your home for Halifax Mooseheads team news and game day posts, will be covering the 2014 IIHF World Juniors. Main posts will be about our very own Herd players on their quest to help Team Canada get back to winning gold. Here`s the info:

News: I will provide you with news from the World Juniors including final roster announcements, suspensions, injuries, etc.

Pre-tournament coverage: As this tournement is quite early in the day, for the pre-tournament schedule I will post news and scores from each day. I will possibly do post game articles after supper.

Team Canada pre-tournament games:
Friday, Dec. 20, 2013 – Canada Vs. Finland – 10 a.m. (EST)
Sunday, Dec. 22, 2013 – Canada Vs. Sweden – 11 a.m. (EST)
Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 – Canada Vs. Switzerland – 12 p.m. (EST)

Game Articles: I will try my hardest to provide you with pregame and postgame stories for the Team Canada games. More articles may come in the New Year depending on how far Canada goes but I will do a preview and post game article of both the Bronze and Gold Medal games.

Tweets: I will live tweet three of the four Team Canada games, mostly score updates but will have game plays too. Look below for the full tweeting schedule.
Thursday December 26th at 8:30am AT
Saturday December 28th at 12:30pm AT
Tuesday December 31st at 12:30pm AT

Score Updates: At the end of the day, which will be around suppertime this year, I will post the final scores of the day from both groups.

*Note: All info will be on the blog twitter at @MC_MooseCountry as the Moose have two players on the team as long as Jo Drouin returns from his concussion.

Full Team Canada schedule in Group A
Thursday Dec 26th - Germany vs. Canada - 8:30am/AT
Saturday Dec 28th - Canada vs. Czech Republic - 12:30pm/AT
Monday Dec 30th - Canada vs. Slovakia - 12:30pm/AT
Tuesday Dec 31st - United States vs. Canada - 12:30/AT



Ehlers in Poland playing for Danes
Rookie forward Nikolaj Ehlers was named to Team Denmark for their Division 1 Group A tournament that began on Sunday and will continue until Saturday. This is a 6 team tournament where each team plays the other 5 teams in the group, there are no medal games just regular games with the top team in the standings being promoted to the Top Division for next year.

Nikolaj and his Danish teammates have already played two games on Sunday and Monday with today being an off day in the tournament. Ehlers was held pointless in a 3-1 win on the weekend over Austria. He than scored on Monday and was given a helper on the first goal for two points in Denmark`s 4-2 win over host Poland. Latvia; who dominated Slovenia yesterday winning 10-0; Belarus and Denmark have 2 wins each and 0 losses while Austria, Poland and Slovenia have 0 wins and 2 losses each.

WJC: Denmark opens with win.

The Danish under 20 team won their first game in the 2014 world junior division 1 tournament today 3-1 against the Austrian team. Our very own Halifax Moosehead Nikolaj Ehlers was announced last week that he had been named to team Denmark. He and team Denmark played their 1st game of the tournament that is being held in Poland between December 15th and the 21st. Ehlers had 3 shots and was 33% on the face off playing on what looked like the second line.

Congrats to the Danes on the win. Keep it going Nik and score a goal tomorrow. Denmark will play 4 more games in the tournament with the winner of the group being promoted to the top division. There are 6 teams in the group and each team will play the other five teams. 

As of 3:15pm AT:

Slovenia 3-7 Belarus 

Austria 1-3 Denmark

Poland vs Latvia

Herd Word

WORLD JUNIORS
The World Juniors kick off two weeks tomorrow and 3 of our Mooseheads will be there in Sweden. Or at least we hope so. Zach Fucale and equipment manager Chris MacDonald are locks to be going to the Team Canada camp in Toronto while Jonathan Drouin is not as gaurenteed now after a big hit on the weekend (see below). Group B of Division 1 has already started play while Group A of that division will begin on the 15th. I'll have coverage of Team Canada's journey while they are in Malmo. GO CANADA GO.

DROUIN HIT
On Friday night in a home game against the Quebec Remparts, Jonathan Drouin was hit from behind by fellow Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Adam Erne. The team announced the next day that Drouin had suffered a concussion because of the hit. His status for Team Canada's junior team is now up in the air.

The weird thing is that Erne did not recieve a suspension from the incident. Laurent Dauphin hit Russia's Igor Baldaev during a Subway Super Series game a couple weeks ago and bloodied the Russian forwards face. Dauphin received a 6 game suspension for that hit which seemed less dangerous, in my opinion, except for the blood. The brass of the Halifax Mooseheads had some things to say to the League after the decision came down earlier this week.

EHLERS
Nikolaj Ehlers left on Monday to join his Danish team at the Group A Division 1 world junior tournament which begins on the 15th. Ehlers has been one of the better players on the Mooseheads this year which is evident by his 47 points in 34 games so far in his rookie season. He is second on team scoring, behind of course Jonathan Drouin, and sits first in rookie scoring and 6th in league scoring. I'll have updates on Nikolaj and the Danes starting Sunday if he actually makes the team.

Ehlers was also ranked 10th on Craig's List. He's moving up.

THE SHIFT
TSN had their annual World Juniors preview show last week and had a nice little feature on an awesome shift that Drouin had in February. I'll post clip after supper.

MACDONALD
Chris MacDonald is heading to Toronto today for Team Canada's world junior camp. He will represent his country as well as the Halifax Mooseheads and Moose Country as the equipment manager when the team is in Sweden. He tweeted this earlier today:

There was also an article in the Chronicle Herald the other day on him.

FIRST GOALS
Congratulations to former Herd players Stefan Fournier and Konrad Albeltshauser who scored their first pro AHL goal on the same night. Fournier's first of the year gave his Hamilton Bulldogs a 4-1 lead in the third period against the Lake Erie Monsters. Abeltashauser scored the tying goal in the 3rd period that allowed his Worcester Sharks to force a shootout and win 2-1 against the host Manchester Monarchs who also had a former Moose playing on their team; Andrew Bodnarchuk.

CALL UPS
With Zach Fucale leaving tomorrow for Toronto and Matt Murphy out for two weeks with a shouldar injury, the Halifax Mooseheads called up goaltender Jacob Dempsey and defenseman Brandon Worthen. The two players will travel with the team on their last road trip before Christmas.

THIS WEEKEND
Halifax will play the middle part of a four game road trip this weekend. The team will visit Baie-Comeau and Chicoutimi to take on the Drakkar, always entertaining games, and the Sagueneens on Friday and Saturday respectively.

They played the first game of the trip in Charlottetown and defeated the Islanders 4-1 on Sunday.

TRADE DEADLINE
The QMJHL trade dealine is January 7th at noon. The winter trading period is from December 22nd to January 7th. Let's hope that Dom does not trade anybody on the roster that we have now.

POSTGAME: Tigres 1, Mooseheads 4

MC POST-GAME
Whitney's 40 saves aren't enough for victory from Tigres

FINAL: Tigres 1 at Mooseheads 4
Attendance: 6,628
Three stars: 3. Brandon Whitney VIC | 2. Nikolaj Ehlers HAL | 1. Jonathan Drouin HAL
MC Top Herd: Jonathan Drouin

The Canadian Press' recap: Jonathan Drouin scored goals 65 seconds apart in the third period and got the Halifax Mooseheads back on the winning path with a 4-1 victory over the Victoriaville Tigres in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action on Thursday.

Metro Halifax's recap: Just when it looked like a game guaranteed to be grinded out to the end, Jonathan Drouin imposed his will.

Cory Coolen's recap: Jonathan Drouin’s three-point night led the Halifax Mooseheads to a 4-1 victory over the East Division’s Victoriaville Tigres on Thursday night in front of 6,628 fans at the Halifax Metro Centre.

The Chronicle Herald's recap: The Halifax Mooseheads weren’t about to make it three losses in a row.

halifaxmooseheads.com's recap: The Mooseheads snapped a brief 2 game losing skid with a 4-1 win over the stubborn Victoriaville Tigres thursday night.

qmjhl.ca's recap: Game summary

MISSING IN ACTION: Liam Alcalde, Jacob Jacques and Max Lindsay did not play

TWEET OF THE NIGHT

HATRED
I did not know that these two teams had such a rivalry. I don't know what it was but there were a lot of fights, lots of yapping and lots of hitting. Maybe it was just because the Mooseheads were mad from losing two in a row and were having a hard time getting pucks behind Brandon Whitney or something else. It was entertaining to say the least though.

SHUTOUT
Despite the shot total both teams cam eout of the first period being shutout by the goaltenders.

WHITNEY
Brandon WHitney, from Kentville Nova Scotia, was stellar last night and gave his team every opportunity to win the game. He had to make some pretty nice saves during the game but he couldn't stop Jonthan Drouin. Whitney faced 46 shots while Zach Fucale only faced 17. Brandon saved the same amount in the first period as Fucale did all game actually.

DROUIN
Jonathan Drouin was playing on all cylinders once again. He scored 2 really nice goals in 65 seconds to give Halifax the lead they needed. He ended the night with 2 goals and an assist on Nik Ehlers late first period powerplay goal.

DUCHARME
Head coach Dom Ducharme was not happy at all last night. There were a few missed calls like always and Dom flew off the handle. That too was entertaining to watch sitting behind the bench.

OTHER SCORES

UP NEXT
Halifax plays host to the Quebec Remparts in an always interesting match up at the Metro Centre. Puck drops at 7pm.

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, Danny Moynihan was named the Scholastic Player of the Month for November 2013. Moynihan scored 3 goals and assisted on 5 others to end the month with 8 points in 10 games played.

Here is the full list:

BAC	Charles Poulin	Cégep de Baie-Comeau
BAT	Jacob Brennan	Acadia University, UNB & Bathurst High School
BLB	Marc-Olivier Roy	Cégep à distance
CAP	Bradley Lalonde	Riverview Rural High
CHA	Kameron Kielly	Charlottetown Rural High School
CHI	Nicolas Roy	Odyssée Dominique-Racine
DRU	Louis-Philippe Guindon	Cégep de Drummondville
GAT	Derek Sheppard	Athabaska University
HAL	Danny Moynihan	Prince Andrew High School
MON	Joshua Pugsley	Harrison Trimble High School
QUE	Olivier Archambault	Cégep à distance
RIM	Simon Bourque	Académie les Estacades
ROU	Alexandre Leclerc	Cégep de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue
SHA	James Phelan	École secondaire Val-Mauricie
SHE	Dominic Talbot-Tassi	Cégep de Sherbrooke
SNB	Samuel Dove-McFalls	Samuel De Champlain
VDO	Olivier Galipeau	Polyvalente Le Carrefour
VIC	Félix Boucher	Cégep de Victoriaville

WJC: Fucale, Drouin Locks for Team Canada

PRESS RELEASE                  tsn release.

Hockey Canada announced their 25 invitees to the world junior development camp that will be held in Toronto from December 12th to 15th before the team heads to Sweden.

Team Canada has invited way less junior aged players this year. Not exactly sure what the strategy is. Thus, only three players (1 defenssemand and 2 forwards) will be cut from the team at the end of the camp. Only one NHLer was invited to the camp while the Porttland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League have the most invitees with three. No surprise that two Halifax Mooseheads players were invited to the camp with one being a lock on the team, Zach Fucale.

With only 25 players named, Canada only invited 2 goaltenders from the country so both will be playing for their country starting on Boxing Day.

Here is the full list:

Name	S/C	Ht.	Wt.	Born	Hometown	Club Team	Pro Status
Nom	T/C	G.	P.	Né	Ville d'origine	Équipe de club	Statut prof.
Goaltenders/Gardiens de but
Zachary Fucale	L/G	6'1"	176	5/28/1995	Rosemère, Que./Qc	Halifax (QMJHL)	MTL '13 (2, 36)
Jake Paterson	L/G	6'0"	185	5/3/1994	Mississauga, Ont.	Saginaw (OHL)	DET '12 (3, 80)
Defence/Défense
Chris Bigras	L/G	6'0.5"	189	2/22/1995	Woodland Beach, Ont.	Owen Sound (OHL)	COL '13 (2, 32)
Mathew Dumba	R/D	6'0"	183	7/25/1994	Calgary, Alta./Alb.	Minnesota (NHL)	MIN '12 (1, 7)
Aaron Ekblad	R/D	6'3.5"	216	2/7/1996	Belle River, Ont.	Barrie (OHL)	2014 Dft/Rep.
Josh Morrissey	L/G	6'0"	184	3/28/1995	Calgary, Alta./Alb.	Prince Albert (WHL)	WPG '13 (1, 13)
Adam Pelech	L/G	6'2"	215	8/16/1994	Toronto, Ont.	Erie (OHL)	NYI '12 (3, 65)
Derrick Pouliot	L/G	6'0"	203	1/16/1994	Weyburn, Sask.	Portland (WHL)	PIT '12 (1, 8)
Griffin Reinhart	L/G	6'3.5"	212	1/24/1994	West Vancouver, B.C./C.-B.	Edmonton (WHL)	NYI '12 (1, 4)
Damon Severson	R/D	6'2"	198	8/7/1994	Melville, Sask.	Kelowna (WHL)	NJ '12 (2, 60)
Forwards/Avants
Josh Anderson	R/D	6'2"	199	5/7/1994	Burlington, Ont.	London (OHL)	CBJ '12 (4, 95)
Jonathan Drouin	L/G	5'11"	185	3/28/1995	Huberdeau, Que./Qc	Halifax (QMJHL)	TB '13 (1, 3)
Frédérik Gauthier	L/G	6'4"	215	4/26/1995	Mascouche, Que./Qc	Rimouski (QMJHL)	TOR '13 (1, 21)
Félix Girard	R/D	5'11"	190	5/9/1994	Lévis, Que./Qc	Baie-Comeau (QMJHL)	NSH '13 (4, 95)
Bo Horvat	L/G	6'0"	203	4/5/1995	Rodney, Ont.	London (OHL)	VAN '13 (1, 9)
Charles Hudon	L/G	5'10,5"	175	6/23/1994	Boisbriand, Que./Qc	Chicoutimi (QMJHL)	MTL '12 (5, 122)
Scott Laughton	L/G	6'1"	190	5/30/1994	Oakville, Ont.	Oshawa (OHL)	PHI '12 (1, 20)
Curtis Lazar	R/D	6'0"	198	2/2/1995	Vernon, B.C./C.-B.	Edmonton (WHL)	OTT '13 (1, 17)
Taylor Leier	L/G	5'11"	177	2/15/1994	Saskatoon, Sask.	Portland (WHL)	PHI '12 (4, 117)
Anthony Mantha	L/G	6'5"	204	9/16/1994	Longueuil, Que./Qc	Val-d'Or (QMJHL)	DET '13 (1, 20)
Connor McDavid	L/G	6'0"	182	1/13/1997	Newmarket, Ont.	Erie (OHL)	2015 Dft/Rep
Nic Petan	L/G	5'9"	166	3/22/1995	Delta, B.C./C.-B.	Portland (WHL)	WPG '13 (2, 43)
Sam Reinhart	R/D	6'1"	183	11/6/1995	West Vancouver, B.C./C.-B.	Kootenay (WHL)	2014 Dft/Rep.
Kerby Rychel	L/G	6'1"	205	10/7/1994	Tecumseh, Ont.	Windsor (OHL)	CBJ '13 (1, 19)
Hunter Shinkaruk	L/G	5'10.5"	181	10/13/1994	Calgary, Alta./Alb.	Medicine Hat (WHL)	VAN '13 (1, 24)

Mooseheads equipment manager Chris MacDonald was also named as part of Team Canada's roster. He will be one of two team equipment managers.


Congratulations to all the players invited to the camp in Toronto. Canada will play their first game of the tournament on December 26 against Germany. You can watch it on TSN and RDS in Canada.


Nikolaj Ehlers was named to his country's junior team as well according to Willy Palov's twitter. Ehlers will join Denmark in Poland for the Division 1 Pool A tournament between December 15th and 21st. He will join the team December 9th and won't get back to Halifax until the 28th according to Palov.

Team USA will name their roster on Wednesday. Will we see the Moynihan brothers on it? Timo Meier could possibly be named to the Switzerland roster at a later date.

POSTGAME: Wildcats 2, Mooseheads 0

MC POST-GAME
Moose start a streak they didn't want

FINAL: Wildcats 2 at Mooseheads 0
Three stars: 3. Lalonde MON | 2. Fucale HAL | 1. Dubeau MON
Attendance: 7,851

Metro Halifax's recap: The Halifax Mooseheads’ nine-game winning streak was all but a distant memory to Timo Meier, on Sunday evening.

The Chronicle Herald's recap: Goals were in short supply at the Metro Centre on Sunday afternoon.

Cory Coolen (Q News)'s recap: Alex Dubeau turned aside all 31 shots, backstopping the Moncton Wildcats to a 2-0 win over the Halifax Mooseheads on Sunday afternoon in front of 7,851 fans at the Halifax Metro Centre.

qmjhl.ca's recap: Game summary

halifaxmooseheads.ca's recap: The Wildcats are pretty good at ruining the party in Halifax this season.

MISSING IN ACTION: Darcy Ashley, Vincent Watt and Jesse Lussier were all out with the flu

SHUTOUT
In four games played between these two rivals, three of them have ended with one team not being able to score during that game. This is the second shutout for the Moncton Wildcaats against Halifax this season.

PENALTIES
When these teams meet there normally isn't any love between them. So there are normally more penalties than the Moose would normally have in their games. As result last night the Cats went 2-for-7 on the powerplay while the Herd couldn't get a powerplay goal on 4 opportunities. There was a few unsportsmanlike conducts as well as roughing and interference calls.

DROUIN
Jonathan Drouin had his personal point streak snapped yesterday afternoon. He had a point in each game in November and had 39 points in 14 straight games.

DUBEAU
Alex Dubeau, the Moncton Wildcats goaltender, received first star honors with the 31 save shutout. It was a battle between goalies on Sunday as the game winner happened at the 2:58 minute mark of the third period.

OTHER SCORES
Val-d'Or 6 - 1 Bathurst
Cape Breton 6 - 3 Charlottetown
Rimouski 2 - 3 Quebec OT
Gatineau 5 - 4 Blainville SO
Drummondville 3 - 0 Shawinigan
Baie-Comeau 2 - 1 Sherbrooke
Chicoutimi 1 - 3 Victoriaville

UP NEXT
Halifax will look to get back to winning on Thursday when the Victoriaville Tigres come to town. Puck drops at 7pm.