The Halifax Mooseheads aren’t packing it in just yet.
The Mooseheads picked up two huge points Thursday night at the Metro Centre with a 4-2 win over the P.E.I. Rocket, moving to within three points of a QMJHL playoff spot.
In a game with near playoff intensity, the Herd worked hard and cranked it up even more after Gabriel Desjardins’ shorthanded game-winner at 13:18 of the second period.
“That’s what we need,” said winger Eric Louis-Seize. “We need to have the kill-or-be-killed mentality right now.”
The line of Desjardins, Alexis Piette and Yuri Cheremetiev did much of the offensive damage for Halifax. Piette and Cheremetiev scored in the first and the Desjardins winner came after back-to-back goals by P.E.I.’s Benjamin Casavant.
Linden Bahm tallied into an empty net with 14.6 seconds left.
One of the keys to the game was Halifax’s penalty killing. The Mooseheads killed off seven of eight power plays, including two in the final 10 minutes of the third on a Jan Stransky roughing minor and a Justin Pender check from behind.
“We kept our cool and shut them down,” said Louis-Seize.
Among Mark Yetman’s 29 stops was the save of the game — perhaps even the save of the year — on Lower Sackville’s Ben Duffy on the power play with nine minutes to go. Yetman was belly-down on the ice, but somehow got his glove up to rob Duffy, who thought he had a wide-open net.
“That was the save of the game,” Louis-Seize said. “We said, ‘We can’t lose the game now after a save like that.’”
The last-place Mooseheads, 17-37-3-3, have 40 points with eight games remaining. They must pass two of the following teams to move into a playoff spot: Lewiston (42 points, seven games remaining), Baie-Comeau (43 points, nine games remaining) and Val-d’Or (43 points, seven games remaining).
The job continues Friday at 7 p.m. at the Metro Centre, with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles visiting. The Mooseheads will wear Nova Scotia Voyageurs replica jerseys. They hit the road Sunday for a rematch with the Rocket.
