March Is Just The Beginning

As we end the month of February let's take a look at the coming month and the race to the playoffs. It's going to be a very intense interesting final 15 days for half of the Maritime division plus 3 Quebec teams and their fans. After tonight's games the bottom 5 teams are separated by only 4 points and are battling for the final 3 playoff spots. The Chicoutimi Sagueneens have not officially clinched a playoff spot but with them and the Sherbrooke Phoenix, who are 15th overall, each having 7 games left the Sags have basically sown it up.

Your Halifax Mooseheads have clinched a chance to repeat as league champions but possibly as third overall this year. The Moose lead the Maritime division by 13 points over provincials rivals Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. The Eagles finished last overall last season but have been quite good this season and are looking to make a run and show that the Saint John Sea Dogs and Mooseheads are not the only Atlantic Canada team that can win championships in the last few years. If Halifax can extend their win streak to seven tomorrow night they will clinch the division title. The Moncton Wildcats are the other Maritime team to have clinched a playoff spot.

After Chicoutimi with 53 points, it`s the Charlottetown Islanders in 14th overall with a record of 19-36-2-4 with 44 points. The Acadie-Bathurst Titan (18-37-4-2) are next at 15th overall two points behind the Islanders and tied with the Shawinigan Cataractes who are 17-36-4-4. Saint John and Sherbrooke are right now in the position to miss the playoffs.

All 6 Maritime teams play each other in the month of March. Halifax plays Cape Breton, Charlottetown and Saint John twice each plus the Wildcats tomorrow.

Good luck to everyone the rest of the season. Here are the standings

as of 11:45pm Friday February 28

GAMEDAY 61: at Acadie-Bathurst

IT'S GAMEDAY

ACADIE-BATHURST TITAN vs. HALIFAX MOOSEHEADS

Puck drop at 7:00pm

K.C Irving Regional Centre (3,162) ~ Bathurst, NB

PREVIEW - Can we go for 6? After a slow start to start February, your Halifax Mooseheads are heating up at the right time yet again. When they take on the Acadie-Bathurst Titan tonight they will be looking for their 6th straight win while the Titan are fighting for their lives trying to make the playoffs. With almost every team having 8 games left on their schedule going into tonight, these two teams are heading in different directions. The Mooseheads are once again 2 points behind second overall Blainville. Three points seperate the bottom 5 teams in the standings with Bathurst being on top of that board.

This is the second visit to the K.C. for Halifax in two weeks. The two clubs met each other on February 16 with the home Titan being shutout 6-0. Philippe Gadoury scored two goals while Zach Fucale made 17 saves. Jacob Brennan and Miguel Sullivan shared the netminding roles stopping 31 of 37 pucks.

THE NUMBERS

Leading scorers
HAL: Jonathan Doruin 84pts (24G & 60A), Nikolaj Ehlers 83pts (37G & 46A), Darcy Ashley 69pts (25G & 44A)
BAT: Matthew Boudreau 38pts (14G & 24A), Scott Oke 35pts (15G & 20A), Alexandros Soumakis 30pts (16G & 14A)

HEAD-TO-HEAD
This season    5-0-0-0    29GF   13GA
September 25 Titan 3 at Mooseheads 5
October 25 Mooseheads 5 at Titan 2
October 26 Titan 3 at Mooseheads 4
November 16 Mooseheads 6 at Titan 3
November 22 Titan 2 at Mooseheads 9
January 11  Titan 2 at Mooseheads 4
January 19  Mooseheads 9 at Titan 1
February 16  Mooseheads 6 at Titan 0
February 28 @ 7pm Mooseheads at Titan
Last season      6-0-2-0    50GF    35GA

GAME COVERAGE
TV: None
Live: @ABTitanLive, @CoolenTQN
Radio: News 95.7, CKLE 92.9
Webcast: TELUS
Post-game: The Q News

AFTER THE GAME
Halifax will travel to Moncton to take on the Wildcats on Saturday night. Puck drops at 7pm.

Herd Word

#TOMSTRONG
Stephen Gillard, Stephen MacAulay and the Saint Mary's Huskies will be playing an important game tonight in support of their assistant coach Tom Lee. The Huskies will take on the No. 4 nationally ranked Acadia Axemen at the Forum this evening. Puck will drop at 7pm. TomStrong has become a big thing around the city and it is to help raise money for the Luekemia and Lyphoma Society of Canada. I think this is a very good thing for the school to do. Go out and cheer on the former Mooseheads and support Tom as he battles cancer. I'll be tweeting some during the game.

MACKINNON
Nathan MacKinnon scored the only goal in last night's Colorado Avalanche's 3-1 loss the Philadelphia Flyers. The goal was his 21st of the season. It also extended his point streak to 7 games. Nathan is just ripping it up in the NHL as a rookie this year. We shouldn't really be surprised though. He now has 43 points in 57 games played and is still first among rookies, 7 points ahead of the next rookie.

SOLDOUT
Saturday night hockey and soldout are four words that should go together. Well it's taken 4 and a half months but they can finally go together when talking about a Halifax Mooseheads game. On Wednesday, the Moose announced that tomorrow night's game against the Rimouski Oceanic is soldout. That means there will be 10,595 roaring fans cheering on the home team as they take on one of our biggest rivals. Follow me on twitter during the game though I may be too excited to live tweet.

FUCALE
We may not be top of the league this season but that doesn't mean that our popularity has dimmed down. In a new 'award' that the QMJHL started this year at the end of November, a Halifax Mooseheads player has been named the Social Media Star of the month each time. The award is given to a player who has the most mentions on the two social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook. For twitter it's favourites, retweets or direct mentions for a player while on Facebook it's comments or likes about a player. For the month of January it has been given to Zach Fucale, your team goalie. According to the article, Zach had a total of 750 mentions on Twitter and 2000 comments and likes on Facebook. He was followed by two other Mooseheads; Jonathan Drouin (who won in November) and Nikolaj Ehlers.


BLACK & GOLD BUS ATTACK
This has nothing to do with the Mooseheads but I thought it was a nice showing of how well the Charlottetown Islanders are doing now in terms of fan support. One of the biggest Islander fans is HKYHatGuy. He is know for his cowboy hat with a Canadian flag on the front and his crazy cheering. Well he decided to go on another trip across the bridge to Moncton and bring a long some friends this time to cheer on the Islanders away from the Civic Centre. It will be a full bus heading to Moncton this afternoon when another game in the Battle of the Bridge goes tonight at 7pm.

Good job HKYHatGuy and the rest of the Charlottetown fan base. Follow @HKYHatGuy on twitter.

Last Quebec trip intense

The Halifax Mooseheads have played their last Quebec road trip of the season this past weekend. On Wednesday the Herd traveled to the province of Quebec to start their road trip. They first made a stop in Quebec City to take on the Remparts on Thursday night. It was a very penalized affair as the Remparts took the game 8-2 on the strength of their powerplay. Jonathan Drouin and Nikolaj Ehlers were both thrown out of the game in the third period while Andrew Ryan was also sent to the dressing room with only a few minutes left. Now games between these two teams have always been interesting and physical but this took it to another level. According to the Mooseheads twitter account they didn't know why Drouin, Ehlers and Ryan got kicked out. Quebec had 16 powerplays with penalty of them being 5 on 3's. There was almost 100 penalty minutes during the game with 63 of them being from Halifax while 34 were given to Quebec. Nick Sorenson had a hat trick for the Remparts while Halifax goals came from Ehlers and Andrew Shewfelt.

On Friday the team went north to take on the Cataractes in Shawinigan. They had a much better game against the Cataractes winning 4-3. Halifax was down 2-0 after 30:12 of the game. With the help of Drouin and Ehlers, the Moose came storming back to score 4 goals. Brent Andrews scored the game winner into the empty net. Nicolas Walsh scored with 2 seconds left to make it interesting but it was too late for Shawinigan.

Last night was the last game of the road trip as the Moose traveled to Boisbriand to battle the Armada. The game went to a shootout which Halifax was unable to pull through as the Armada won 4 to 3. Marcus Hinds scored the winner in the eighth round, Darcy Ashley was the only one able to score for Halifax. All 3 of Halifax's goal were scored on the powerplay that was held scoreless in the previous two games.

Halifax will now play 3 more games against Quebec teams all being this month and all at home. Rimouski comes to town on Saturday which is also the Mooseheads next game. On February 13 we welcome the Gatineau Olympiques to Moose Country and in the last home game of February it's a rematch against the Cataractes on the 21st.

As always GO MOOSE GO!! Have a great week and see ya Saturday.

Drouin having a week

Jonathan Drouin is having an awesome week. He missed the first few games of the 2014 year because of the World Juniors and than spending a few days in Quebec with his family. In the three games the Halifax Mooseheads played this past week, Drouin scored a goal and had 9 assists for 10 points.

Jonathan was named the second star of the week ending January 19th. It's the third time that Drouin has been named one of the TELUS 3 stars of the week. Full story. The next day he was named the CHL player of the week for the same week. He was once before named CHL player of the week 2 months ago. Full story.

Congrats Jonathan keep up the awesome work.

Fucale Could Make History!

100. The number of wins the goaltender of your Halifax Mooseheads is closing in on. If the Mooseheads can win their fifth in a row tonight, Zach Fucale will reach the milestone. Halifax is on the road for a third straight game, visiting Saint John tonight to take on the Sea Dogs at Harbour Station at 7pm.

Not only will a win tonight get the 3rd year goaltender the milestone but it will also put him in the QMJHL history books.  Fucale can become the first Quebec league goaltender to win 100 games in under 150 contests played. Jacques Cloutier is the current holder. He won his 100th game in his 150th contest. Zach has played 142 games so far all of which have been played with the Moose. 

It sucks that Herd fans may not be able to witness this historic moment but I am sure if it does happen tonight against the Dogs the team will have a presentation on Friday night when they are back home. Nonetheless MooseCountry blog would like to wish Zach good luck tonight as well as the rest of the team. As always Go Moose Go! 

Where Are They Now?

I thought I would do a 'where are they now?' post. This will include more of the bigger named Mooseheads players, draft picks from the past couple of years, and the former members of the championship team last season.

GIGUERE
Jean-Sebastien Giguere played for Halifax in the teams first season. He played 3 seasons for the Herd after starting his career with the Verdun College Francis in 1993. He was drafted in 1995 by the Hartford Whalers 13th overall. During the 1996-97 season he played in 8 pro games with the Whalers winning 1 game and losing 4 others while also playing for the Moose and getting QMJHL All Star honors. He was than traded in the offseason. He currently is playing for the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League. In 12 games played he has a 7-4-0-2 record with 0.911 save percentage. He also made stops in Calgary, Anaheim and Toronto.

SHELLEY
Jody Shelley has been considered one of Halifax's all time favorite players mainly because in the early seasons of the team, he was tough and what the team needed back than. He too was a member of the first team and played in three season. After the Philadelphia Flyers did not offer him a contract after the 2012-13 NHL season, he retired from playing professional hockey on August 9, 2013. The Columbus Blue Jackets offered him a job in their front office however which is where he currently is with his wife and son. He started his pro career with the Jackets and made stops in San Jose and New York before playing the last three seasons with the Flyers.

VORACEK
While Shelley and Giguere were trying to help Halifax make a name for hockey in the Atlantic provinces, Jakub Voracek was 5 and probably never heard of the city. After spending most of his childhood in the Czech Republic, the Mooseheads drafted him first overall in the Canadian Hockey League Import Draft in 2006. He only played 112 games over two seasons but amassed an astonishing 187 points with 56 of them being goals. In 2007 he was picked 7th overall by the Blue Jackets in the NHL Entry Draft and signed a entry level contract with them in August. He's only had one 50+ point season since entering the NHL in the 2008-09 season. He currently is playing with the Flyers and sits 3rd in team scoring with 14 goals and 35 points.

CRITCHLOW
Fredicton, New Brunswick native Cameron Critchlow is currently playing university for his hometown team, the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds. He's in his second AUS season picking up 27 points in 42 games over the two years. After getting drafted by the Acadie-Bathurst Titan in 2007, 'Critch' played 2 and a half seasons with the Titan serving as alternate captain in the last year and a half. The now defunct Lewiston MAINEiacs acquired him mid season in 2009-10. He was than captain during the 2010-11 QMJHL season after which the Moose acquired him and he was named captain for Halifax as well.

MACKINNON
As everyone knows, Nathan MacKinnon was the only one to get an NHL job from being on last year's Memorial Cup winning team. He went first overall in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft back in late June to the Avalanche. There was no doubt in anyone's mind going into training camp in September that MacKinnon would not make the team after newly appointed head coach Patrick Roy said that they were keeping him. He's been strong for the team who has had one of their best starts in franchise history. It took him only 5 games to score his first pro goal in which he already had 4 points in the four games beforehand. October 12, 2013 is a day he won't forget, he had his first and added his fifth assist in a 5-1 victory over the Washington Capitals. Nathan currently leads all rookie scoring in points with 31 in 48 games played. He is tied for first in rookie goal scoring at 15.

HANNAY
Sawyer Hannay played for the Moose from 2009 to 2012 collecting 15 points as a defenceman in 159 games plus one more last season before being traded to Victoriaville where he got 6 assists in 38 games played. Before the 2012-13 season however though he decided to play in Austria as he would have been one of 5 overagers for the Herd that year but he came back after 10 games and played 1 more for Halifax. Sawyer started this season with the Evansville Icemen of the ECHL playing in 22 games collecting 4 points. He currently plays for the St. Thomas Tommies in New Brunswick picking up an assist in 6 games played since January 3rd. He also has 40 penalty minutes. He was drafted 205th overall in the 2010 NHL draft by the Vancouver Canucks.

SWAN
Currently playing in Quebec for the Riviere-du-Loup 3L of the Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey, Bryce Swan has collected 18 points and 7 goals in 20 games played this season for the team. Swan played 4 seasons for Halifax between 2004 and 2008 ending his Q league with 134 points, 77 goals and 272 penalty minutes. 109 of those minutes were in his last junior season. He than played 5 seasons in the Atlantic University Sport teams for St. Francis Xavier University and University of New Brunswick. While playing in the QMJHL he was drafted 38th overall by the Anaheim Ducks in the 2006 NHL draft.

PRIDHAM
Colby Pridham is currently writing stories for Sportsnet about the Canadian Interuniversity Sport. He does the CIS rankings. He played for the Mooseheads between 2006 and 2008, he than played for the Saint Mary's Huskies for four seasons and played a fifth for the Varsity Reds last season.

FRK
Marty Frk is currently playing for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League. He played 3 seasons for your Mooseheads scoring the most points in his career last season with 84 points in 56 games played. Marty has also played for the Toledo Walleye this season of the ECHL. He's clearly more comfortable in the lower levels of hockey as he has 5 goals and 13 points in 15 games while only assisting on a goal in 19 games played for the Griffins. He was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings 49th overall in 2012.

BODNARCHUK
Drafted 128th overall by the Boston Bruins in the same draft as Bryce Swan, Andrew Bodnarchuk has cracked the Bruins roster for 5 games back in the 2009-10 NHL season. He had no points in those games. He played three seasons in Halifax collecting 123 points. He was the captain of the team for the 2007-08 season. He's never gone lower than the AHL though playing for the Providence Bruins for four season after his junior career. He currently plays for the Manchester Monarchs, the first tier affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings after they signed him as a free agent in early July 2012.

MACAULAY
Stephen MacAulay put his professional hockey league dream on hold after he had been scratched for the last few games of 2013. He decided that the best thing to do to allow him to play was come back home and go

to university and play for the Saint Mary's Huskies. He played four and a half seasons for the Saint John Sea Dogs before asking to be traded to the Mooseheads in January 2013 to be with his ailing mother. He helped Halifax get their first league championship in franchise history after collecting 2 others with the Dogs. He's probably one of the most decorated junior league player in the amount of championships and championship appearances.

BEAUCHEMIN
Earlier this month, Dominic Beauchemin was traded for a third time in the past 7 months, this time to the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. In 5 games with his new team he has scored 3 points. During the 2013 draft Halifax traded Dominic to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan where he played 17 games and scored 5 goals and had 11 points. Than he was traded to the Rimouski Oceanic recording 18 points in 21 games played.

LINDSAY
Max Lindsay stayed in the province but he's playing for a different team. The Cape Breton Screaming Eagles claimed Max off waivers from the Moose. He's played 4 games so far with the Eagles and has a goal and an assist. He had 6 points in 30 games before being claimed. He had 8 points last season for Halifax.

LEWIS/PYE
After Trey Lewis got a hip injury earlier this season, Halifax was forced to make a decision about their overage situation with injured players returning to the lineup. Halifax kept him on their protected roster when the only way for the former captain to be 100% healthy was to get season ending surgery. Trey went back home and started playing for the Miramichi Timberwolves of the Maritime Junior Hockey League. He has 4 goals and 15 assists for 19 points in 18 games played. Lewis plays against a Herd draftee who plays on the Truro Bearcats. Brandon Pye was drafted in 2011 by the Moose and also by the Bearcats that same year. He has 27 points with 10 goals in 32 games.

ABELTSHAUSER
In 23 games as a pro defenceman, Konrad Abeltshauser has one goal and 6 points for the Worcester Sharks in the AHL. He played four seasons for the Herd winning a Memorial Cup with the team in May of last year. He was drafted 163rd overall in 2010 by Worcester's NHL affiliate, the San Jose Sharks.

BOUDREAU
Four years of being Halifax Moosehead was the only long term junior career Matt Boudreau has. Matt was traded after the 2012-13 season by the Herd to the Shawinigan Cataractes. After 13 games in Shawinigan, he was shipped east to Victoriaville to play 14 games for the Tigres. Boudreau came back to the Atlantic division after the Christmas break to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. He's helped on 7 goals in the 9 games he's played since.

GRENIER
Alexandre Grenier played only one season for Halifax recording a point per game with the team after being drafted by the Canucks 90th overall in 2011. Alexandre scored 25 goals and 39 assists for 64 points in 64 games. The season before he played half a season in Quebec for the Remparts. He than played in Austria as well to start the 2012-13 season before playing for the Chicago Wolves (AHL) and Kalamazoo Wings (ECHL) in the second half. He now plays for the Utica Comets which is the affiliate of Vancouver recording 25 points, scoring 13 goals.

FORTIER/FORD
2013 second round draft picks for your Halifax Mooseheads Maxime Fortier and Taylor Ford have played a few games for the Herd but are now teammates on the Lac St-Louis Lions team of the QMAAA in Quebec.

EICHEL/HAYDEN
Jack Eichel who the Mooseheads drafted in 2012 has been playing for the United Stated Junior Developmental team this season instead of playing in the QMJHL. He has committed to Boston University for next season. He was also drafted by the Sea Dogs in the 2013 QMJHL draft. Fellow 2012 draftee and American John Hayden decided to stay in the States as well and is playing for the Bulldogs of Yale University.

*as of January 20, 2014 

pictures: hockeyfights.com, thechronicleherald.com, cbssports.com, bleacherreport.com