PRE-GAME: Game One - Victoriaville Tigres vs Saint John Sea Dogs

GAME DAY
2010 Presidents Cup Playoffs – Round Three
Game One: Victoriaville Tigres vs Saint John Sea Dogs
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Harbour Station

SERIES STATUS
This is the first game of the best-of-seven series.

PRE-GAME PREVIEW
Game One of the semi-final series featuring the Saint John Sea Dogs and Victoriaville Tigres goes tonight at 7:30 pm at Harbour Station.

With a partially screwed-up schedule, the first two games of this series could have a lot of meaning with the Saint John being forced to hit the road for over five days.

Both teams had similar journeys to get to this point. Victoriaville got by the Shawinigan Cataractes 4-2 and then swept the Quebec Remparts. Saint John skimmed by the PEI Rocket in the opening round and swept Gatineau.

Neither team has played since last Wednesday.

These two teams will no doubt take some time to check each other out during this tilt. Their last meeting was October 4 in Victoriaville.

GET TO KNOW THE TIGRES
Visiting Team: Victoriaville Tigres

Playoff Record: 8-2
Record at Home: 4-1
Record on Road: 4-1
Power Play: 34.8%
Penalty Kill: 93.0%
Playoff Leading Scorer: Philip-Michael Devos (10GP-6G-10A-16Pts)
All-Time Playoff Record: 108-109

Reg. Season Record: 46-19-1-2
Record vs Saint John: 1-1-0-0
Record at Home: 23-8-1-2 (4th)
Record on the Road: 23-11-0-0 (3rd)
Power Play: 25.6% (2nd)
Penalty Kill: 85.8% (1st)

Reg. Season Leading Scorer: Philip-Michael Devos (68GP-35G-58A-93Pts)

NHL Draft Picks: Kevin Poulin (New York Islanders), Andrej Nestrasil (Detroit), Tomas Kubalik (Columbus), Joel Champagne (Toronto), Chris Doyle (New York Rangers), Joel Chouinard (Colorado), Samuel Groulx (San Jose).

GET TO KNOW THE SEA DOGS
Home Team: Saint John Sea Dogs

Playoff Record: 9-1
Record at Home: 5-1
Record on Road: 4-0
Power Play: 28.6%
Penalty Kill: 83.9%
Playoff Leading Scorer: Michael Kirkpatrick (9GP-6G-11A-17Pts)
All-Time Playoff Record: 16-11

Reg. Season Record: 53-12-1-2 (1st Atlantic, 1st QMJHL)
Record vs Victoriaville: 1-1-0-0
Record at Home: 26-7-0-1 (3rd)
Record on Road: 27-5-1-1 (1st)
Power Play: 24.3% (5th)
Penalty Kill: 78.8% (10th)

Reg. Season Leading Scorer: Mike Hoffman (56GP-46G-39A-85P)

NHL Draft Picks: Yann Sauve (Vancouver), Marco Cousineau (Anaheim), Simon Despres (Pittsburgh), Steven Anthony (Vancouver), Mike Hoffman (Ottawa), and Nicholas Petersen (Pittsburgh).

HEAD-TO-HEAD THIS SEASON
Season series tied 1-1.

September 25, 2009: Victoriaville 5 @ Saint John 2
October 4, 2009: Saint John 5 @ Victoriaville 3

Sea Dogs leading scorer vs Victoriaville: Nicholas Petersen (1GP-1G-2A-3Pts) and Steven Anthony (2GP-1G-2A-3Pts)
Tigres leading scorer vs Saint John: Andrej Nestrasil (2GP-3G-3A-6Pts)

SERIES RESULTS
This is game one of the best-of-seven series.

GAME 1: Friday, April 16 - 7:30pm @ Harbour Station
GAME 2: Saturday, April 17 - 8pm @ Harbour Station
GAME 3: Tuesday, April 20 - 8pm @ Desjardins Coliseum
GAME 4: Friday, April 23 - 8pm @ Desjardins Coliseum
*GAME 5: Saturday, April 24 - 5pm @ Desjardins Coliseum
*GAME 6: Monday, April 26 - 7pm @ Harbour Station
*GAME 7: Wednesday, April 28 - 7pm @ Harbour Station
*if necessary

TALE OF THE TAPE
September 25, 2009: Alexandre Leduc vs Maxime Robichaud
September 25, 2009: Danick Gauthier vs Patrick Dore

CRAZY FACT
Saint John has never won a semi-final game as they were swept by Rouyn-Noranda in their only appearance. That means the Sea Dogs have never won a game later than April 13 in a season.

SAINT JOHN LINEUP NOTES
Kevin Gagne will miss tonight and tomorrow’s game due to a knee injury. Steven Anthony is also questionable with a groin injury.

To view a Station Nation article on the two’s status, click HERE.

Saint John still has call-ups Chuckie Schembri, Tyrone Sock, and Will Johnston on their roster.

COACHES CORNER
Sea Dogs head coach Gerard Gallant on the Times and Transcript:

"We haven't played against each other since early in the season," said Saint John head coach Gerard Gallant. "They made some trades since the last time we saw them. They're a solid hockey team from the goaltender right on out.

"They've got three very solid capable lines. They've got some skill and veteran players. We'll be watching videotape on them all this week. It's always an extra challenge when you're preparing to face a team that you haven't seen in a long time.

"Victoriaville is going to be a very tough series,” said Gallant. “We'll study what they do on their power play, penalty kill and things like that, but at the same time we have to mainly focus on playing our game. When we play our game we've been successful.”

THEY’RE HERE
According to a Victoriaville newspaper, the Tigres left for Saint John on Wednesday morning and planned to practice yesterday.

According to @KathyEllis1 on Twitter, the Tigres are staying at Chateau Saint John.

TIGRES.COM POLL RESULTS

WHO TO WATCH
Victoriaville – Chris Doyle
Before his trade from PEI at the deadline, the New York Rangers prospect had one goal and five assists in five games against Saint John.

Saint John – Marco Cousineau
After playing his former team in round one, he will be facing two former teamates in Chris Doyle and Joel Champagne.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Victoriaville was recently awarded the 2011 QMJHL entry draft.
• Michael Kirkpatrick has already gathered 17 point in nine playoff games. He shares the top rank of playoff scorers with Gabriel Dumont (DRU) and Jordan Caron (ROU).
• Rookie Jonathan Huberdeau has scored nine goals in these playoffs, four of which were winning goals for his team.
• The Sea Dogs’ Goaltender, Marco Cousineau in winning games during the series. Since he joined the QMJHL, he played 32 playoff games and won 22 of them. These 22 wins place him in 12th position in the QMJHL history and his next win will allow him to join Martin Biron and Marc Denis with 23 wins. The League record is 38 playoff wins and it belongs to Roberto Luongo followed by Robert Desjardins (30) and Emmanuel Fernandez (29).
• Both teams are on seven games winning streaks.
• All-time, Saint John is a perfect 4-0 in playoffs series where they have won the first game. They are 0-2 in series they lost the first battle.

THE RINK
Venue: Harbour Station
Capacity: 6,297
Playoff Average Attendance: 4,269
Reg. Season Average Attendance: 4,140

MEDIA RELATIONS
Newspapers: Saint John- Telegraph- Journal, L’Acadie Nouvelle; Victoriaville- La Nouvelle/L’Union
Radio: Saint John- News 88.9; Victoriaville- 95.7 KYQ
Video: Telus Webcast
Post-Game Highlights: SeaDogsTV

TWITTER
Follow Station Nation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/station_nation for in game updates from tonight’s game.

AFTER THE BUZZER
Game two is tomorrow at Harbour Station. Note that the start time is 8:00 pm and all Sunday bought tickets will be honored.