Moose Spoil Dogs Championship Homecoming

Well there you have it. The 2017-18 QMJHL regular season is officially underway and it begun pretty much how people assumed it would. Your Halifax Mooseheads spoiled a special night for the Saint John Sea Dogs and their fans as the Herd picked up a 4-1 victory after the Dogs raised their championship banner on Thursday night. Two rookies scored their first career goals this evening while newly named captain Maxime Fortier led the team with 2 goals.

The match started as I said with Saint John pulling another President's Cup banner up to the Harbour Station rafters after a dominant 2016-17 season saw them win the league championship. About half of the players in that final have now moved on past the junior level and now the Sea Dogs are in a rebuild season. Saint John also announced their leadership group with seventeen year old forward Joe Veleno named captain. In the first period, Halifax looked like they were being outplayed however sophomore goaltender Alexis Gravel was strong in net to keep the game scoreless after 20 minutes. The Mooseheads took advantage of the home team's penalty troubles going 3-for-3 with an extra attacker while not allowing much on their own penalty kills. 18 year old Filip Zadina scored 5:23 into the second period to record the first marker of the Q season. 2017 4th overall draft pick Xavier Parent scored the eventual game winner a little less than 7 minutes later picking up career goal #1 as well.

FINAL: Mooseheads 4 at Sea Dogs 1
Stars: 3: Ostap Safin SNB | 2. Max Fortier HAL | 1. Alexis Gravel HAL
Attendance: 5,349
MC's Top Herd: n/a

GAME LOG
First period
None

Second period
5:23 HAL Filip Zadina (1), PP | A: Fortier & Lavoie
12:16 HAL Xavier Parent (1), PP | A: Kyte & Barron
17:25 HAL Maxime Fortier (1) | A: none

Third period
2:28 HAL Maxime Fortier (2), PP | A: Chainey & Gravel
4:41 SNB Daniel Hardie (1), PP | A: Safin & Veleno

Powerplay: HAL - 3-for-3, SNB - 1-for-7
Shots: 32-28 in favour of Saint John

MISSING IN ACTION - Arnaud Durandeau (NHL camp), Walter Flower (injury), Otto Somppi (NHL camp), Connor Moynihan (suspension) & Jordan Lepage (injury)

UP NEXT: Halifax will travel to PEI now to play the Charlottetown Islanders on Saturday afternoon Puck drops at 3pm.