The Halifax Mooseheads missed a chance to make up ground in their bid to make the QMJHL playoffs.
The Mooseheads lost 4-1 on the road to the Saint John Sea Dogs to stay three points out of a QMJHL playoff spot, trailing the Lewiston Maineiacs and Val-d’Or Foreurs.
Lewiston and Val-d’Or both lost yesterday and are tied with 46 points, each with two games remaining. The last-place Mooseheads, who managed a 3-2 road win over the Bathurst Titan on Saturday night, need to move past Lewiston and Val-d’Or and have 43 points with four games to go.
In a nutshell, the Mooseheads are guaranteed to make the playoffs if they win their final four games of the year. They haven’t won more than two straight games all season.
The Mooseheads were tied 1-1 with the Sea Dogs as the mid-point of the third period approached, but a puck deflected off Mooseheads blue-liner Pascal Amyot and stood as the winner, credited to Shea Kewin at 9:32.
“It was a lucky goal … One of their guys threw it in front from the corner and was deflected and we didn’t recover,” said Mooseheads head coach Cam Russell. “We played really hard considering it was our second game in two nights.”
Russell said turnovers were costly for his club.
Olivier Ouellet netted an insurance marker with 3:25 to go and Kewin added an empty-netter at 18:56.
Halifax out-shot Saint John 32-23 but Sea Dogs goaltender Robert Mayer was named the game’s first star.
Jessyko Bernard scored Halifax’s only goal, while Mooseheads netminder Mark Yetman followed up Saturday’s 44-save, first-star performance with a 20-save outing.
Jan Stransky, Yuri Cheremetiev and Gerrad Grant scored on Saturday. Grant won it with 4:04 left.
The Mooseheads visit the P.E.I. Rocket on Wednesday and then finish the season with three games in three days at home on the weekend, with the Sea Dogs visiting Friday and Saturady and the finale on Sunday against Bathurst.
