Wearing the sweater of your local major junior hockey team is a special honour. Now in his fifth season with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, Kyle Farrell leads his team in points and wears the “A”. Farrell is from Howie Centre, about a 25-minute drive away from Centre 200 in Sydney, N.S., where the Screaming Eagles have played since moving to the island in 1997, when Farrell was three years old. He got off to a fantastic start this season, with 10 goals and 15 points in his first five games. Farrell is now sixth in league scoring with 18 goals, 14 assists and 32 points. The five-foot-eight, 175-lb. player was drafted by the Screaming Eagles in the third round in 2010.
Kameron Kielly of the Charlottetown Islanders, Jonathan Bourcier of the Gatineau Olympiques and Stephen Johnson of the Moncton Wildcats also had excellent weeks for their hometown teams. Here are the local heroes, overtime heroes and everything else you need to know from around the past week in the Q:
Maritimes Division
An overtime goal by Johnson on Saturday night extended the Wildcats’ winning streak to three games and completed a hat trick starting late in the third period as the team overcame a 4–2 deficit to win 5–4 against the Halifax Mooseheads. It was Johnson’s second hat trick of the week; he notched three goals against Charlottetown in a 5–3 win on Tuesday. Johnson, now in his third season Moncton, has 12 goals on the year, shattering his previous high mark of six last year. St. Louis Blues prospect Ivan Barbashev picked up assists on all three of Johnson’s goals against Halifax and is currently on a eight-game points streak in which he’s picked up five goals and 10 assists.
The Charlottetown Islanders piled up a plethora of goals from NHL-draft eligible players on Sunday, their third game in three nights, as they overpowered the Drummondville Voltigeurs 8–3. Projected first-rounders and linemates Daniel Sprong and Filip Chlapik picked up a goal and assist each. Kameron Kielly also had a goal and assist while Alexandre Goulet picked up a goal and three assists. Both Kielly and Goulet are projected to go somewhere in the fourth to seventh rounds by NHL Central Scouting Services. Kielly also scored the night before in a 4–2 loss to the red-hot Blainville-Boisbrand. The six-foot-one, 182-lb. centre now has nine goals on the season for his hometown Islanders. In his third season of junior hockey, he’s one goal shy of his personal best of 10 goals set last season. Kielly was acquired by the Islanders in the summer of 2013 from the Gatineau Olympiques.
East Division
The league-leading Rimouski Océanic received balanced scoring this week with 10 different players finding the back of the net in two games, an 8–1 win over Chicoutimi on Friday and a 5–1 win over Cape Breton on Saturday. The only player to score in both games was right-winger Michael Joly. After a slow start, Joly is heating up with four goals in November, bringing his season total to eight. Last year he led his team in goal scoring with 44 in total.
The Shawinigan Cataractes picked up two important points in a comeback overtime win over division rival Baie-Comeau on Friday night. Alexis D’Aoust scored with under a minute to go to tie the game, then James Phelan scored the game winner in overtime. Shawinigan Goalie Marvin Cupper continues to have an excellent season. He stopped 29 of 33 shots against by Baie-Comeau and then 34 of 35 shots against by Chicoutimi on Sunday. Cupper has a GAA of 2.54, second only to Gatineau’s Brandon Whitney. He’s also second in save percentage, 0.918, behind Victoriaville’s Chase Marchand. With the Colorado Avalanche returning 20-year-old goalie Francois Tremblay to the QMJHL, the Victoriaville Tigres were forced to make a trade. Tremblay was returned to the Tigres after bouncing between the Avalanche’s farm teams, The Fort Wayne Komets of the ECHL and Lake Earie Monsters of the AHL. He only played one game, a 21-save shutout for the Komets. To make room for Tremblay on the roster, goalie Brandon Whitney was traded to the Gatineau Olympiques in exchange for overage defenceman Phil Pietroniro and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan’s 2015 second-round pick.
West Division
The Swiss combo of Tim Wieser and Kay Schewri continues to be lethal for the division-leading Sherbrooke Phoenix. Wieser scored four goals and Schewri added three assists in the Phoenix’s 7–5 win over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies on Saturday. The big game pushed Weiser into fifth place in league scoring (34 points), two slots behind Schewri (36 points), the league’s top rookie. As an 18-year-old rookie last season, Weiser was second in team scoring with 44 points in 54 games.
Four has been a key number for the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. In four straight games, the Armada have scored four goals on the way to victory. With a pair of wins this weekend, the team’s winning streak improved to 10 games. Latvian left-winger Nikita Jevpalovs led the way with a hat trick Saturday in a 4–2 win over the Charlottetown Islanders. Jevpalovs also scored the night before against Rouyn-Noranda. The six-foot-one, 201-lb. forward, now in his third season with the Armada, leads the team with 16 goals in 18 games and has scored in three consecutive games.
The Gatineau Olympiques closed out October and started November on a three-game win streak in which they scored at least five goals in each game. Goals were harder to come by on home ice this week as the team lost 4–1 Charlottetown Friday and 4–2 to Baie-Comeau on Sunday. The pair of losses allowed Blainville-Boisbriand to pass the Olympiques in division standings. Jonathan Bourcier, a five-foot-seven, 158-lb. right-winger from Gatineau, scored his seventh goal of the season on Sunday. Now in his third season, he’s on pace to surpass his season-high record of 10 goals from last year. Bourcier was selected in the eight round, 133rd overall, by his hometown team in 2012.
Three Stars of the Week
Conor Garland, RW, Moncton Wildcats: The first star of the week, Garland had three goals and six assists in three games as the Wildcats piled up three straight wins. On Tuesday against Charlottetown, Garland scored a goal, the eventual game winner, and added three assists in his team’s 5–3 win. Garland now has nine goals and 21 assists through 21 games.
Angelo Miceli, C, Victoriaville Tigres: Sitting second in league scoring with 37 points, Miceli picks up second star honours this week. In three games he had four goals and three assists, including a hat trick Saturday when the Tigres beat Val-d’Or 8–5.
Filip Chlapik, C, Charlottetown Islanders: In four games this week, Chlapik scored four goals and added three assists. The NHL draft prospect now leads the Islanders with 27 points. The rookie from the Czech Republic was named first star on Friday against Gatineau thanks to a three-point effort.
2015 NHL Draft watch
International Scouting Services released its November rankings for the top 30 prospects. This includes players in the CHL, U.S. leagues and Europe. Four QMJHL players made the list, including Charlottetown Islanders right-winger Daniel Sprong at 18, Cape Breton Screaming Eagles right-winger Evgeny Svechnikov at 19, Chicoutimi Saguenéens centre Nicolas Roy at 23, and Sherbrooke Phoenix defenceman Jérémy Roy at 27.
Sprong moved up one spot while Svechnikov dropped two; Jeremy Roy dropped from 23 to 27, Nicolas Roy dropped from 16 to 23 and both Charlottetown Islanders centre Filip Chlapik and Saint John Sea Dogs defenceman Jakub Zbroril dropped out of the rankings. Nicolas Roy, has had trouble scoring for a team that sits at the bottom of its division and near the bottom of the league. On the year he has four goals and five assists through 20 games. The second ranked goalie, according to ISS, is Callum Booth of the Québec Remparts.