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.