RECAP: Sea Dogs win 4-3 (OT)

FINAL: Charlottetown 3, Saint John 4 (OT)

SAINT JOHN - Daniel Hardie picked a good time to end his goalless streak.

Hardie scored the overtime winner for the Saint John Sea Dogs last night at Harbour Station, giving his team a 4-3 victory over the Charlottetown Islanders and giving the forward his first goal since Nov. 26.

The big story of the game was the performance of goaltender Alex D'Orio, who made 55 stops in the victory. That included 24 saves in the third period alone. The 55 saves made and 58 shots against were both career highs for D'Orio.

Hardie, Brendan O'Reilly, Cole Reginato and Nathan Larose all scored for Saint John. Cedric Pare had three assists.

Charlottetown goals came from Cayse Ton, Nikita Alexandrov and Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Dakota Lund-Cornish made 24 saves in the loss.

The win gives the Sea Dogs back-to-back 4-3 overtime victories to end the first half of the QMJHL's 2017-18 campaign.

Ton opened the scoring late in the first period, but O'Reilly quickly responded with a goal at 19:35 to even things at 1-1 after one.

Saint John jumped out to a 3-1 lead with goals from Reginato at 12:16 of the second and Larose at 6:40 of the third.

The Islanders dominated the third period, outshooting Saint John 24-5, and finally beat D'Orio late in the frame. At 16:20, Alexandrov scored on a rebound to make it a 3-2 game. Then, with 14.8 seconds remaining and the goaltender pulled, Joseph scored with a high shot through some traffic to even things up at 3-3.

But Saint John would not fall on this night. At 3:48 of overtime, Hardie had a step on the Charlottetown defence and beat Lund-Cornish with a wrist shot to give Saint John the victory.

LINEUP

Here is tonight's lineup for your #SJSeaDogs brought to you by @CantrburyDental #AlwaysWearYourMouthGuard pic.twitter.com/iLVI2Euzdx

— Saint John Sea Dogs (@SJSeaDogs) December 16, 2017

SCRATCHES
The Sea Dogs were without defencemen Tyler Smith (healthy) and Radim Salda (world junior camp); and forwards Ostap Safin (world junior camp), Joe Veleno (upper body), Nick Deakin-Poot (upper body) and Samuel Leblanc (healthy).

NOTES
Brendan O'Reilly scored his first QMJHL goal... Luke Wilson recorded his first QMJHL point... Cedric Pare has a goal and six assists over his past four games... the Sea Dogs scored four goals in back-to-back games without the services of Joe Veleno, Ostap Safin and Radim Salda... Kevin Mason was recalled from the MHL and made his QMJHL debut. He started the game on the fourth line with Landon Quinney and Luke Wilson.

NEXT GAME
The Sea Dogs return to action on Dec. 28 at Harbour Station, hosting the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles at 7 p.m.