Nathan MacKinnon and his Halifax Mooseheads will look to avenge their only regulation loss of the season against Tomas Hyka’s Gatineau Olympiques on Friday Night Hockey this week.
Hyka scored twice in Gatineau’s 6-1 win over the Mooseheads on Sept. 28 in Halifax’s home opener. Since then the Mooseheads won 14 of their last 15 games and sit atop the latest BMO CHL MasterCard Top 10 Rankings with a 16-1-0-1 record.
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Asked if the Mooseheads may have payback on their minds, head coach Dominique Ducharme answered definitively.
“Payback? No,” he said. “We want to be winning every game and yeah, Gatineau won (our) home opener, but obviously we want to play better than we did that night.”
MacKinnon answered with the lone Mooseheads goal in Gatineau’s 6-1 win. He’s sixth in league scoring with 30 points in 18 games while teammate Jonathan Drouin isn’t far behind with 24 points in 12 games. The duo of MacKinnon and Drouin is terrorizing goalies in league and international play, most recently with big performances each against Team Russia in the Subway Super Series on Wednesday.
“They’re probably the best tandem in the league,” Gatineau head coach Benoit Groulx explained. “They’ll have chances. I think it’s impossible at this level to shut them down totally, but it’s more to contain them and if we can do it, we’ll have a better chance to win.”
THE STARS
MacKinnon is living up to the hype this season with 18 goals in 18 games. The potential first-overall pick this summer is shifty and creative offensively, often igniting the offence for the Mooseheads.
“He’s consistent, I find, this year,” Ducharme said. “He’s much better into details and I think the way he plays every night, his ups and downs are closer. There’s not as much of a big gap.”
MacKinnon will return to his natural position at center after playing partly as a winger on Team QMJHL in the Subway Super Series. He scored once and had three assists in Wednesday’s 5-2 win for Team QMJHL over the Russians. With two games already under his belt this week, Ducharme will be scaling back his minutes marginally.
“We’ll manage it,” he said, “but at the same time, he should be on the ice almost like usual.”
Groulx knows the Olympiques may go just as far as Hyka carries them. So far this season, the Czech forward isn’t producing at the clip expected from him with 13 points in 15 games.
“He works hard, he wants to be better, he knows he has to be better and I think it’s a matter of time before he gets himself where he wants to be,” Groulx said. “I think the day Tomas Hyka will play up to his potential, our team will benefit from that.”
| PLAYERS DRAFTED BY NHL TEAMS | ||
| Halifax | RW – Martin Frk | (49th overall, R2, 2012) |
| D – Konrad Abeltshauser | San Jose Sharks (163rd overall, R6, 2010) | |
| C – Brent Andrews | Nashville Predators (202nd overall, R7, 2011) | |
| Gatineau | RW – Tomas Hyka | Los Angeles Kings (171st overall, R6, 2012) |
NAMES TO WATCH
Drouin’s game is becoming the buzz of the scouting community this season. Whether some considered his success last year a direct result of playing alongside MacKinnon is now irrelevant, since Drouin is proving an elite prospect in his own right.
“He keeps improving every week,” Ducharme said. “The way he competes, his hockey sense, his vision on the ice, you add that to the skills — his hands — that makes him a special player. But the way he competes, his vision and his skills are way above average.”
Drouin missed Monday’s Subway Super Series game due to an injury, but netted an identical goal and three assist performance as MacKinnon on a line with him and Jonathan Huberdeau.
Sophomore forward Emile Poirier is taking the necessary steps forward for the Olympiques. The product from Montreal is averaging a point per game this season with nine goals and six assists in 15 games and is on the radar of NHL teams scouting the draft eligible prospects.
“He’s a type of guy that’s got a second gear,” Groulx describes. “I think his speed is deceiving for the defencemen. They don’t expect him to get a second gear and all of a sudden, before the time you realize, he’s behind them and he’s on breakaways. He’s got more confidence in him this year, goes to the net more and that’s why he’s been successful.”
| POTENTIAL FUTURE NHL DRAFT PICKS | ||
| Halifax | C – Nathan MacKinnon | Eligible in 2013 |
| LW – Jonathan Drouin | Eligible in 2013 | |
| RW – Ryan Falkenham | Eligible in 2013 | |
| LW – Lucas Lessio | Eligible in 2014 | |
| Gatineau | LW – Emile Poirier | Eligible in 2013 |
| LW – Martin Reway | Eligible in 2013 | |
| RW – Kameron Kielly | Eligible in 2015 | |
GOALIES
It’s been a tale of two different seasons for Zachary Fucale. The Mooseheads’ sophomore sensation was a pleasant surprise on a young team a year ago. Now he’s managing the expectations of playing behind a maturing team with championship aspirations.
“It’s a different situation from last year,” Ducharme notes. “He’s getting a lot less shots and he’s learning to play within that. Sometimes it’s tough on the focus for goalies but I think he’s only going to get better.”
Former OHLer Michael Nishi stopped 29-of-30 shots in Gatineau’s win over Halifax earlier this season, but he won’t get the nod against the Mooseheads this time. With two wins in his last three starts, Eric Brassard will have the task of protecting the Olympiques’ net against the Mooseheads’ sharpshooters.
“He’s young, he’s very athletic, he competes hard, he’s big,” says Groulx. “It’s up to Brassard.”
WJHC CONNECTION
Hyka represented the Czechs in last year’s world junior tournament and should get the chance to do so again in Ufa, Russia this December and January. Hyka is adapting to the expectations placed on him this season and progressing, which should pay dividends for the Czech team when the tournament begins.
“He knows what he has to do,” said Groulx. “It’s a matter of going to the net more, not playing on the outside and he’s got great speed, great set of skills, he’s got to use them properly.”
Martin Reway, the fourth-overall pick in this summer’s CHL import draft, may also earn consideration for the Czech squad. Although just 17, Reway leads the Olympiques in scoring with 10 goals and 19 points in 17 games.
Martin Frk played in the 2011 world junior tournament in Buffalo, but missed last year’s tournament after sustaining a concussion in September. A second-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings, the Czech forward is hitting his stride offensively of late with multi-point games in his last four outings.
“I thought from the start he had been skating much better and working hard and getting involved everywhere,” Ducharme said. “I think what we’re trying to do with him is to get him to play inside and to sometimes go and grab those rebounds and be playing to attack the net more. He’s been doing that the last few games and it’s been paying off for him.”
The Mooseheads could be well represented at this year’s tournament with Frk playing for the Czechs and with Canadian hopefuls MacKinnon, Drouin, Fucale and Brent Andrews.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
The Mooseheads will be on the war path after losing just their second game of the season on Sunday. They led Rimouski 5-1 going into the third period before eventually losing 6-5 in a shootout against the same team that defeated them in the third round of last year’s playoffs.
Last time the Mooseheads lost, they won their next 14 straight games.
“We’re not happy with the way the last game ended,” Ducharme said. “We let it slip away and guys are not happy about that. We want to bounce back on Friday night and we are not talking about (starting) a streak, but we’re talking about playing better. That’s our focus and that’s how we need to approach every game. I expect us to be coming out hard and ready to go.”
Much has changed since the Olympiques stunned the Mooseheads on Sept. 28. The win was Gatineau’s first on the season, and since then they’ve won just five in the next 14 games. Another win against the nation’s top team could be what the doctor ordered to get their season kicked into high gear.
