Herd Word

ALL-STAR TEAMS

Photo - QMJHL website

Despite having a not so good season, a couple of Halifax Mooseheads players were honoured for their efforts during the regular season. Goaltender Jacob Steinman, probably mostly because of his stats while he was with the Moncton Wildcats before being traded to Halifax at Christmas time, was named to the QMJHL First All-Star Team earlier this month. In 52 games played in 2024-25, Steinman had a 29-16-4-1 record, a 2.44 goals against average with a 0.923 save percentage and 3 shutouts. At the same time, defenceman Carlos Handel was one of six players to be on the All-Rookie Team after picking up 3 goals and 26 points in 52 games, all with the Mooseheads. 

Congrats to both guys being given the recognition!

MOOSE TRACKS
I haven't shared all the Moose Tracks videos but thought I would post this one as it seems like it will be the last one for the season. For episode 7, we get behind the scenes looks at play by play announcer Garreth MacDonald and go into the dressing room. 

PRE-SEASON SCHEDULE
Our Mooseheads announced their pre-season schedule a couple of weeks ago and the team will play four exhibition matches, all against provincial rivals Cape Breton. I noticed the schedule being up a couple days before the team made it official, but it looked odd so wasn't sure it was the full schedule. Nice to see the team will be sharing the love around Nova Scotia this year. This is the least amount of games I have seen Halifax play. 

August 19  at Cape Breton     7:00 p.m.  Centre 200
August 20  vs Cape Breton     7:00 p.m.  St. Margaret's Centre
August 23  vs Cape Breton     4:00 p.m.  Rath Eastlink Community Centre
September 6  at Cape Breton     4:00 p.m.  Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre

GOLDEN PUCK AWARDS
The QMJHL announced the nominees for the first seven Golden Puck Awards a few weeks ago and former Herd Markus Vidicek was among the three names vying for the Guy Carbonneau Trophy as top defensive forward. Unfortunately, the next day the winner was announced as Matyas Melovsky of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. 

On May 21, the league released the names for the final eight awards. First, net-minder Jacob Steinman has been nominated for the Patrick Roy Trophy as goaltender of the year. The 20-year-old had a 0.917 save percentage in 22 games with Halifax according to the article. Mooseheads alumni Mathieu Cataford is one of the final three players who will look to win the Marcel Robert Trophy which is given to the student athlete of the year. The winners will be announced on June 5. 

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
It was a mixed bag of results for former Halifax Mooseheads players at the World Championships. After Winnipeg was eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs, forward Nikolaj Ehlers joined host Denmark, making it six alumni participating in the tournament. The 29-year-old Ehlers helped his country to a 4th place finish, their best ever result, by scoring 3 goals in 4 games. They would battle against Nathan MacKinnon, MacKenzie Weegar and Canada in the quarter-finals, winning 2-1. MacKinnon recorded 13 points in 8 games but couldn't help the Canadians finish higher than 5th place. Filip Zadina and Czechia lost 5-2 to Sweden in the quarters. Nico Hischier was once again named captain of Switzerland but unfortunately got injured just a week into the competition, ending his tournament. Timo Meier finished 17th in scoring with 3 goals and 10 points as the Swiss lost a very tight final game, 1-0 in overtime to the United States.

Congratulations to Timo Meier, Nico Hischier and Switzerland on becoming silver medalists on May 25. 

Other things..

• Mooseheads alumni Maxime Fortier has signed on with SaiPa of Liiga for the 2025-26 season 
• The 2025 Memorial Cup is over for the two Q teams after the Rimouski Oceanic went 0-3 in the preliminary round while the Moncton Wildcats were defeated by London in the semi-finals 
• Beginning next year, the CHL along with its membership leagues, announced that Under Armour will be the exclusive jersey, footwear and apparel partner while Bauer will serve as the official equipment supplier 
• Another university commitment was made last week with assistant captain Braeden MacPhee joining the recruitment class for the UNB Reds 
• From Scott Wheeler; d-man Carlos Handel has been invited to this year's NHL draft combine which begins on Monday

Wednesday News: Somppi Going to Draft Combine

Halifax Mooseheads rookie Otto Somppi was one of the 114 junior players announced to be invited to this year's draft combine.

The 18 year old was among the 4 players from the QMJHL Maritimes division teams invited. It's a chance for NHL team personnel to get another look at draft eligible players for "a complete physical and medical assessment of the top prospects three weeks before the draft." The event will be held from May 30 to June 4 at the First Niagara Center and HarborCenter in Buffalo, NY.

Somppi had a strong first season in North America recording 13 goals and 46 points in 59 games with the Mooseheads. The Finnish forward was ranked 78th on the Central Scouting rankings for NA skaters. The 2016 National Hockey League entry draft will be held June 24-25 at First Niagara Center.

In other news

• Former Herd players Connor Moynihan and Zach Fucale were in Shawinigan last night checking out former teammates Timo Meier, Cavan Fitzgerald and Danny Moynihan. The Cataractes avoided the sweep against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, picking up a 6-4 win.
• With the QMJHL draft less than a month away, talks about who your Moose will pick first overall are heating up with one ISS scout predicting that Halifax will chose Cole Harbour Wolfpack defenseman Jared MacIsaac. See the video from John Moore here.
• Alumni Jonathan Drouin has helped his Tampa Bay Lightning move on to the Eastern Conference Finals of the 2016 NHL playoffs where they will meet the Pittsburgh Penguins. He had a goal and 4 assists in the Bolts 5 game second round series against the New York Islanders.

Herd Word

2015 NHL Draft Combine logo
Photo - NHL.com

NHL COMBINE
The National Hockey League 2015 combine begins today in Buffalo. Your Halifax Mooseheads will have one player in the state of New York this week. Timo Meier, a second year Swiss forward, was listed among the 120 invitees that was released last week. He'll be looking to show the scouts what he has. Meier is going into the draft ranked #8 by Craig Button. Don't forget to vote on the poll of where you think the 18 year old will end up getting drafted (poll is off to the side).

Q DRAFT
The QMJHL draft is fast approaching. The Mooseheads will have their first pick at 7th overall on Saturday afternoon in Sherbrooke. It's the first 1st round pick that Halifax has had since 2011. See the full list of where Cam Russell and the Herd will be drafting here.

JORDAN BOYD HOCKEY CHALLENGE
The organizers for the Jordan Boyd Hockey Challenge announced last week that there will be another day of competition again this summer. The date will be August 8, 2015 at the BMO Centre in Bedford. Six professional players have already been announced with more to come I am sure. Former Mooseheads Andrew Bodnarchuk and Brad Marchand will be playing with local players to raise money for the Jordan Boyd Leadership Award. Boyd past away on August 12, 2013 after collapsing on the ice during training camp with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. The event last year raised over 100,000 dollars.

15-16 SCHEDULE
The schedule for the 2015-2016 QMJHL season should be released sometime in the next 7 days. I will keep you updated to when it is released and once the events for your Moose are announced (which probably will not be until August) I will post them on my blog. The teams are putting the finishing touches on their schedules.

MEMORIAL CUP

2015 Memorial Cup champs; Oshawa Generals
Photo - theqmjhl.ca

The 2015 Memorial Cup champs were crowned last night. Zach Fucale, Matt Murphy and Brian Lovell were unable to claim their second Memorial Cup rings after losing to the Kelowna Rockets in the semi final game, 9-3. Fucale played the whole 60 minutes making 35 saves while Lovell did not play in the tournament at all. Kelowna played the Oshawa Generals for national bragging rights but lost in overtime. Anthony Cirelli scored in regulation and than again at 1:12 into the first OT period to clinch the 2-1 victory for the Generals.

Congratulation to Oshawa on being the 2015 national champs!

Sunday Notes: Ehlers Going to Draft Combine

Photo: NHL.com

Nikolaj Ehlers is spending the next week in Toronto after spending the weekend in London. Ehlers, who was second in team scoring for your Halifax Mooseheads this past season, was invited to the 2014 NHL Draft Combine that is going to be held in Toronto, Ontario from May 26-31. He will be put through physical and medical tests and interviews by the teams. Interviews will be held Monday through Friday with a medical exam taking place on Friday and a series of physical testing done on Saturday. Nikolaj goes into the week as QMJHL and CHL Rookie of the Year and ranked 13th in the NHL.com list of North American draft prospects.

The Dashing Dane was two hours away in London this past weekend for the Canadian Hockey League awards that were held at the Memorial Cup tournament. He was nominated for two awards and took home the BMO Rookie of the Year award after leading all rookie scorers in the country with 49 goals and 105 points.

In other news

• Halifax Mooseheads prospect Maxime Fortier of the Lac St. Louis Lions was named the Quebec Midget AAA Most Valuable Player for this past season
• The Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League won the Memorial Cup championship this evening after beating the OHL champs, the Guelph Storm 6-3 led by Henrik Samuelsson's 5 points (2 goals & 3 assists)
• Val-d'Or Foreurs and former Charlottetown Islanders' goaltender was named the Memorial Cup Top Goalie and to the All-Star team
• It's the offseason! The QMJHL Draft is on Saturday and I will have a complete list of who the Moose pick during the day. I will have news through out the off season as well as training camp news
• According to the team twitter account, the 2014-15 season schedule will be released in the next 14 days. Check back here when it is released to see when your Mooseheads play next season

NHL Combine

SIGNED
The top three prospects in this year's NHL draft have signed their first pro endorsement deal. Nathan MacKinnon, Seth Jones and Jonathan Drouin have all signed deals with CCM/Reebok Hockey today and they've been feeling the love from other members.

CABBIE
Nate and Seth were interviewed this afternoon by Cabbie Richards and it looks like both of the boys were wearing CCM polos shortly after being signed to an endorsement deal. They look pretty good if I do say so myself.

INTERVIEWS
For the last couple of days, all the prospects have been going through the interview process. Scouts and management from individual NHL teams meet with a player and discuss their play and other things sometimes things like what's your favourite color or food. This process is good for the teams to figure out who the player is and if they would be a good fit with the team. Seth Jones said that he went had 17 interviews during the last two days.

FITNESS
The fitness training part of the combine begins tomorrow and will continue on Saturday. Each player also goes through a medical. Jones, MacKinnon and Drouin may not participate in the fitness portion according to their managers. After the long season I guess there's worry that it would give them a disadvantage and not show teams how good they actually are. I personally think they should still do it and prove to teams that even after playing around 90 games doesn't slow them down. For full story click here.

Photo: Twitter

Herd Word

MOOSEHEADS DAY
Today is the day we've been waiting for all year. Your Halifax Mooseheads are back home after winning the Memorial Cup on Sunday and the city has decided that they are dedicating today to the team. There will be a short parade starting at noon with it ending in Grand Parade Square. After the official event there will be an autograph session. Part of Carmichael Street will be closed between 11 and 3 and Metro Transit is having free bus and ferry rides during this time. Mike Savage explained to Metro Halifax why the city decided to have the pararde “It’s not every day a city gets to push out its chest and say, ‘We’re No. 1,’ We have the best junior team in the CHL and that’s worth coming out to celebrate.” With regards to the bad timing the Mayor told Metro “We hope maybe some employers will be a little flexible with some of their employees so they can go home and get their kids from school and bring them down.”

NHL COMBINE
Nathan MacKinnon, Zach Fucale and Jonathan Drouin are all leaving tonight to head to Toronto for the NHL combine. This is the reason why the Parade is today at the time that it is becuase the whole team deserved to be there. The NHL pushed the flights back so the boys could enjoy this with the city and their team. Look back here for the results during the week. Good luck Nate, Jo and Zach.

AIRPORT
Last night, the Moose touchdown at the Halifax International Airport and were greeted by a huge crowd of fans who braved the rain to welcome home their favourite team. Co-captain Trey Lewis was the first off the plane followed closely by coach Dom Ducharme. Trey was holding the Memorial Cup when he came off the plane. The team arrived on a charter flight at the ESSO building shortly after 5pm yesterday.

OVERAGERS
Sunday's championship game was the last junior game for Stephen MacAulay, Konrad Abeltshauser and Stefan Fournier. MacAulay and Abeltshauser were both drafted in 2010 by the St Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks respectively. I hope they have proven themselves this year and get a NHL contract for the upcoming season. No matter what happens I wish them luck in their futures.