Herd Finish 1st Half of Season

Photo - Shawn Davidson

And it's the end of the first half of the 2017-18 season already. Your Halifax Mooseheads go into the holiday break with three consecutive wins with two being over provincial rivals Cape Breton. Rookie Xavier Parent had a goal and an assist to lead the Herd in the game on Saturday night where Halifax defeated the Screaming Eagles 4-2. Blade Mann-Dixon was back for the last couple of games after being out with an injury but clearly did not feel good enough to be put in game action as Alexis Gravel started all 3 matches. The 3 victories led to the CHL giving the Moose an honourable mention on the BMO Top-10 rankings that were released on Wednesday.

The game against Cape Breton on December 13 began a streak of 20 matches that the Mooseheads will play against Maritime division rivals. It will be interesting to see how the standings are like when this string of games end in February. When teams come back on December 28, some will look different but is yet to be seen if Halifax will as they have only done one trade so far and the player they received from Acadie-Bathurst is not guaranteed to report. The Herd will start with a game at home against the Charlottetown Islanders before playing a home and home with CB on the weekend.

First half stats
Record - 21-9-4-1 = 47 points   35GP (3rd overall, 1st Maritimes division)
Goals for - 131
Goals against - 104
Penalties -  507
Powerplay - 17.2%
Penalty kill - 83.7%
Streak - 3-0-0-0
Past 10 - 7-2-0-1

Top 5 scorers: Filip Zadina (24-22-46), Maxime Fortier (18-23-41), Otto Somppi (11-25-36), Benoit-Olivier Groulx (15-14-29) & Arnaud Durandeau (13-14-27)
Goalies: Blade Mann-Dixon 13-3-2-0 record, 1 shutout, 2.70 GAA, 0.908 SV%; Alexis Gravel 8-6-2-1 record, 0 shutouts, 3.09 GAA, 0.899 SV%



Have a happy holiday break Moose Country, see you back at the Scotiabank Centre on December 28. Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you enjoy it.