ROUGH NIGHT FOR FORMER SEA DOG

HALIFAX - Still wearing his Saint John Sea Dogs pads and mask, Frederic Piche fell victim to his former team’s dynamic offense on Saturday night at the Halifax Metro Centre.

In his first start as Halifax Moosehead since being traded from Saint John on Thursday in exchange for goaltender Mathieu Corbeil, Piche allowed five goals on 24 shots with four of those coming in the first period. Safe to say it wasn’t the first impression Piche wanted to give his new team.

The Sea Dogs scored early and often en route to a 9-2 blowout win over the Mooseheads. But to be fair to the Mooseheads and Piche, the Herd’s young and developing defense could only do so much to stop the nation’s top ranked team who are averaging an insane 4.8 goals per game.

"There wasn’t much any goalie could’ve done on a lot of those goals," Moosehead Travis Randell said the Chronicle Herald. "They have a lot of NHL-projected guys for the first couple rounds of the draft. There are a lot of high-calibre players on that team with NHL-calibre shots. There’s only so much (the goalies) could do."

According to Metro Halifax, it was “the Herd’s worst home loss since a 10-1 shellacking at the hands of the Moncton Wildcats on Dec. 27, 2009.”

Just 39 seconds into the match, Jonathan Huberdeau began his terrific night by dancing around former Sea Dog Pascal Amyot and then firing a wrist shot over the glove of the former Sea Dogs goaltender. It was apparent that the Sea Dogs knew Piche’s weaknesses after practicing with the netminder all season as high-to-the-glove-side began to become a popular destination for pucks hitting the back of the cage.

With the score 4-1, rookie Anthony Terenzio replaced Piche in net to start the second period. He didn’t fare much better, allowing four goals just under-14 minutes of action. While Piche sat on the bench, the Metro Centre’s video feed showed the interesting picture of him, wearing a Mooseheads jersey, sitting beside Corbeil, wearing a Sea Dogs sweater, separated by nothing more than a sheet of glass.

The 19-year old would allow just one more goal on the night which came from a Nathan Beaulieu power play blast in the third period. One can only imagine what kind of thoughts were going through Piche’s head as the match came to a close.

The Sea Dogs are now 6-0-0-0 against the Moose this season. Their next meeting is February 5 in Halifax and their final meeting of the year goes on February 22 at Harbour Station.

Photo Credits: QMJHL, John Moore