By Station Nation Staff
SEA DOGS – HUSKIES GAME AT A GLANCE
Final Score: Saint John 7, Rouyn-Noranda 0
Saint John Goals: Stanislav Galiev (8, 9), Gabriel Bourret (3), Danick Gauthier (3), Mike Thomas (2), and Michael Kirkpatrick (5, 6)
Rouyn-Noranda Goals: None
Winning Goaltender: SJ – Frederic Piche
Losing Goaltender: RN – Mickael Audette
News 88.9 Top Dog: Mike Thomas
THE NUMBERS
Power Play: Huskies 0/5, Sea Dogs: 1/7
Shots on Goal: Huskies: 4+17+7=28, Sea Dogs: 13+18+13=44
Length: 2:21
Attendance: 1,614
SAINT JOHN SCRATCHES
Aidan Kelly was a healthy scratch while, according to News 88.9, Tyrone Sock was out with the flu.
One notable scratch for Rouyn-Noranda saw former Sea Dogs defenseman Robert McEwan sit out after a fairly solid game on Saturday against Saint John.
BLOWOUT IN ROUYN
In one of their best games of the season, the Saint John Sea Dogs walked over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, blowing them out 7-0 on Sunday afternoon at Iamgold Arena.
"It was a total team effort,'' Saint John head coach Gerard Gallant said after Sunday's victory to the Telegraph-Journal. "There was no selfish play. It was all team play and that's how you're successful.''
It was a dominant game by Saint John from start to finish, outshooting the Huskies 44-28 en route to their 15th win of the season.
In the first, Stanislav Galiev opened the scoring at 10:56 with he ripped a shot over the glove of Mickael Audette in the Rouyn-Noranda crease. Just over five minutes later Gabriel Bourret accepted a Mike Thomas pass and scored to give Saint John a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes.
Despite the Sea Dogs holding just a single shot lead - 18-17 – the Sea Dogs dominated the middle frame.
Danick Gauthier scored just 11 seconds in to give the Dogs a 3-0 lead. Then, at 11:50 with Nathan Beaulieu in the box, a Stephen MacAulay shot rebound to captain Thomas who slid the puck in to make it a 4-0 game. Just under 40 seconds later Galiev chipped the puck ahead to Michael Kirkpatrick who beat Audette with a low laser to extend the visitors lead to five.
With Jeffery Noonan now in net for Rouyn-Noranda, Galiev didn’t care about a change in netminders and made it a 6-0 game on a shot that took place just a few moments after a faceoff in the offensive zone.
In a penalty filled third period, neither team looked to eager to do much defensively. With Audette back in goal, Kirkpatrick was sprung on a breakaway and walked around the diving goaltender to put the Sea Dogs ahead by a touchdown.
The rough stuff continued deep into the game, but nothing came out of it as Saint John cruised to an easy victory.
The Abitibi-Témiscamingue region was good to the Sea Dogs this season. Probably one of Saint John’s toughest road trips of the year, the Sea Dogs picked up all eight points on the four game road trip through Val-d’Or and Rouyn-Noranda.
Saint John started the trip with Wednesday's 5-4 win in Val-d'Or, followed by Friday's 7-3 win over the same Foreurs team. They then took on the Huskies Saturday and were victorious with a 3-2 overtime win against the cellar dwelling squad. They wrapped up the road trip with yesterday’s 7-0 romp.
Going 3-0 on any Quebec road swing is tough enough, but to go 4-0 against these two teams is very impressive.
The Sea Dogs have played their last six games on the road, going 5-1-0-0 during the span with their only loss coming in Bathurst.
THE AUDETTE SHOW
Huskies goaltender Mickael Audette put on quite the performance in the third period of Sunday’s game, taking three roughing penalties. It was worthy of a separate post which can be read HERE.
Just how bizare was it? He picked up the dishonourable mention award over at Yahoo!’s Buzzing The Net:
Audette kind of lost his mind in the latter half of the Huskies' 7-0 home loss to Saint John. The goaltender, who allowed six goals on 35 shots in the shellacking, also took three roughing penalties. Some cheap advice is he should try to spend more time playing goal and a little less trying to invent an agitator role, mmm-kay?KIRKPATRICK TIES SPARLING
With two goals in the game, Michael Kirkpatrick tied Ryan Sparling’s franchise record for career goals as a Sea Dog with 83. He’ll have a chance to break the record against his hometown Cape Breton Screaming Eagles Friday.
As this un-updated chart shows, Kirkpatrick could break a few more records this season:
BIG NIGHT FOR THE THIRD LINE
The third line of Mike Thomas, Stephen MacAulay, and Danick Gauthier had a big night for Saint John. The three combined to score two goals and five assists with goals coming from Gauthier and Thomas. MacAulay and Thomas both had two assists.
The line started the game up front for Saint John and slowly began to get their offense rolling.
The 2011 line featuring Zach Phillips, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Tomas Jurco was held pointless.
NO MORE ROUYN
This was the final meeting between the two teams for likely a good year or so. The Huskies will have quite a battle to make if they wish to make the playoffs.
The Sea Dogs outscored Rouyn-Noranda 12-4 in three games and shut them out two times – each with a different goaltender in net.
Just before Stanislav Galiev scored the first goal of the game, Tim Roszell and News 88.9 went dark due to technical issues. Roszell came back after a brief absence just in time to call Galiev’s goal on what sounded like a mid-1990’s cell phone.
The issues were quickly resolved.
It was a bad luck weekend for the radio broadcast as they missed a goal in Saturday’s game while on commercial break.
IT WAS HALLOWEEN
It was the first game in Sea Dogs franchise history to be played on Halloween. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of costumes at Iamgold Arena on Sunday, but a mascot could be seen skating around wearing a cape. Not sure if that is normal or not.
LOTS OF PENALTIES
Referees Frédéric Leblanc and Eric Charron and linesmen Serge Carpentier and Yannick Massé were the officials for the past three Sea Dogs games. There was only one fight, but there were a ridiculus amount of roughing penalties called on Sunday:
IT’S OVER
Tomas Jurco took his first penalty of the season yesterday, a roughing penalty at 8:57 of the second period. Jurco had played in all previous 18 Sea Dogs games and had not served time in the box.
QUICK HITS
News 88.9 reported that former Sea Dogs head coach Jacques Beaulieu was in the building last night, no doubt getting a look at his son Nathan and the team that his fingerprints all over it… second straight game that Sock missed because of the flu… obviously, it was the last game for Saint John in the month of October. The Sea Dogs do not leave the province in November… Rouyn-Noranda lost their eighth straight game… Saint John won their fifth straight game… the game ended with 1.6 seconds left in the third period after rough stuff was beginning to take over the game… Kevin Gagne was a team high +4… Huskies forward Jonathan Bonneau had eight shots… all four games on the Sea Dogs’ Quebec road trip had less than 2,000 fans at the game... to relive the game, check out the SN Live Blog Replay.
NEXT GAME
The Sea Dogs finally return home on Friday night at 7:30 pm to face the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.
Photo/Image Credits: Huskies website, Google, EliteProspects.com, Sea Dogs website, QMJHL website
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