SASKATOON, Sask. — It’s scary to think the Halifax Mooseheads could hit another gear after a lopsided 9-2 win over the London Knights on Tuesday in the MasterCard Memorial Cup.
The Mooseheads’ win assures the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champs won’t be playing in Thursday’s tiebreaker. Their fate will be determined based on Wednesday’s final round-robin game between Saskatoon and Portland, where a Winterhawks win would put the Mooseheads straight into Sunday’s final.
As has become customary, Mooseheads head coach Dominique Ducharme explained his team could still be better in spite of a one-sided victory.
“We were not perfect,” he said. “We were close, but we were not perfect. Our goal is to be playing the perfect game.”
Now the Mooseheads will be rooting for the Winterhawks on Wednesday.
“If you ask me if we would rather play on Sunday or Friday, we’ll go with Sunday,” Ducharme said.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t (cheering for Portland),” Nathan MacKinnon added. “But it’s out of our hands. We can’t get too worked up over that stuff.”
The Mooseheads got their offence worked up. MacKinnon picked up three assists in the victory while linemate Martin Frk scored a hat trick.
“It’s easy to put the pucks in if they pass it like that,” Frk said while donning the Mooseheads’ infamous fur coat as player of the game, decided upon by his head coach. “I just have to make sure I’m ready for every pass they make.”
It was a disappointing loss for the Knights, who are now forced to play in Thursday’s tiebreaker. They were flat in the first period and saw themselves down 5-0 at the first intermission and could never get enough momentum to sustain a rally.
“It was embarrassing, really,” Knights forward Seth Griffith said. “We haven’t got beaten like that in a long time.”
The Mooseheads chased Knights starting goalie Jake Patterson with five goals on 11 shots through 20 minutes. Anthony Stolarz didn’t have much better luck, stopping 22 of 26 shots he faced.
“It wasn’t their fault tonight,” Griffith said. “We didn’t play well as a team. We all know we’re capable of a lot better than that and we just didn’t have a strong performance tonight.”
Why the Mooseheads won: Right from the puck drop, the Mooseheads were the hungrier team. Drouin appeared ready to break out after a suspect first two games, and he enjoyed his best game of the tournament with three assists.
Darcy Ashley’s first goal and the Mooseheads’ second of the game was a prime example of their drive and determination. Ashley followed up the play after making a nice pass to Stephen MacAulay, whose shot produced a rebound right in front of Patterson’s net. Ashley beat his man to the loose puck and chipped it past Patterson to the near side.
“It’s been a long time, I think since the Gatineau series (in the second round) since I scored,” Ashley said. “I kind of went cold there for a while so it’s always nice to pot a couple.”
The Mooseheads received goals from six different players to get the secondary scoring that will be crucial moving forward.
Why the Knights lost: The Knights began settling into their traditional trap right from the opening faceoff, but the Mooseheads’ speed was too tough to contain. London was just sloppy from the moment Halifax opened the scoring and didn’t improve its game much. The Knights didn’t show much drive defensively and weren’t able to cover the open man, which led to some goals.
The Mooseheads were also able to find holes in the defence by passing through the coverage.
“When you’re playing against (Olli) Maatta and (Scott) Harrington you really want to spread out the ice as much as you can and try to get them moving,” MacKinnon said. “They play man-to-man so we wanted to get a good cycle game going and beat their guys back to the net. We did that and lanes opened up.”
The Knights were able to generate some chances offensively, but were often turned aside by Fucale. Their inability to put the puck in early, in addition to their inability to keep it out, created an insurmountable hole.
Player of the game: Frk showed why his finishing skills were rated so highly among scouts for last summer’s NHL draft. The Czech forward put himself in good positions to score and on many of his goals, the puck was off his stick just as quickly as he got it. Frk also set up the game’s first goal on a nice pass to Stefan Fournier while the Mooseheads were up a man.
“A guy like that shoots the puck and it’s coming in hot,” Fucale said. “Whenever he does shoot, he puts the chances on his side.”
Unsung hero: Fucale and Ashley should share this category after some dazzling saves by Fucale and a two-goal game from Ashley. Fucale prevented a Knights comeback early with some critical stops, including one where he tracked the puck down in his crease while on his stomach and picked it up with his blocker.
“Pretty much any time it’s important for me not to give any momentum,” Fucale said. “Whatever the score is, for me, I don’t want to give anything and the team as well, we don’t’ want to give the other teams anything.”
Game changer: On Halifax’s fourth goal, Nikita Zadorov got caught at the red-line and it created a two-on-one for Brent Andrews and Luca Ciampini. Andrews used Ciampini as a decoy and fired it low far side for the goal.
Zadorov skated to the bench and slashed his stick against the boards in frustration.
After coming back from a 3-0 deficit against Portland on Monday, the fourth goal by Andrews set the stage for a blowout with the fifth goal by Frk coming 29 seconds later.
Quote of the day: Asked if he didn’t want to mess up any of the great feeds he received from MacKinnon and Drouin on his goals, Frk said, “No, I can’t because they get cranky after, so I make sure I’m ready for that.”
