RECAP: Gauthier Is Good. Dogs Win 7-3.

SAINT JOHN – That’s more like it.

Icing a depleted lineup, the Saint John Sea Dogs’ big guns came to play in a 7-3 victory over the Halifax Mooseheads on Saturday night at Harbour Station.

Danick Gauthier had a hat trick while Tomas Jurco, Ian Saab, Kevin Gagne, and Stephen Anderson added singles. Jurco also had three assists. Grant West, Devon Oliver-Dares, and Oliver Cooper all had a pair of helpers. Goaltender Mathieu Corbeil made 20 stops for the win.

Halifax had goals from Andrew Ryan, Darcy Ashley and Matthew Boudreau. Zachary Fucale allowed six goals on 29 shots before getting pulled. Marc-Olivier Daigle allowed one goal on three shots in relief.

It was just a solid game from the Sea Dogs. Coming off that disappointing 3-2 loss against Bathurst on Friday, it was a great rebound game. The win ended Saint John’s losing streak at two games.

Here’s the most unorganized recap of all-time to sum it all up.

• Forwards Mackenzie Brown and Stephen Anderson were both called up by the Sea Dogs. Anderson scored his fifth goal of the season in the first period. Brown left the game at the some point early on and never returned.
• Defenseman Ian Saab returned to the Sea Dogs’ lineup after missing last night’s game with an injury.
• Halifax was without current/future phenom Nathan MacKinnon after getting injured in the Mooseheads’ game on Friday in PEI. He took his talents to the broadcast booth instead, doing the colour with John Moore on News 95.7.
• Anderson scored the first goal of the game at 9:51 of the first period, sending the teddy bears to the ice of Harbour Station.
• Danick Gauthier has his groove back. After failing to score in his three previous contests entering Friday’s game, Gauthier has four in the last two – including three goals in this game. Incredible fact: Gauthier now has 30 goals on the year. He had 29 in his QMJHL career entering this season.
• Charles-Olivier Roussel wore an ‘A’ on his sweater. Gauthier was the captain, filling in Zack Phillips who is filling in for Jonathan Huberdeau.
• Ian Saab scored his first goal as Sea Dog late in the third period. Congrats to him.
• Sea Dogs have now won 15 straight games over the Mooseheads. They are 3-0 against them this season.
• Saint John has now outscored opponents 67-33 in second periods this year.
• Rough couple of games for Halifax. They lost 6-1 in PEI on Friday and 7-3 tonight. Goaltender Zach Fucale was pulled in both of them. They might be a bit angry heading into tomorrow’s rematch.
• Decent December crowd of 4,409 on hand for this one.
• Devon Oliver-Dares took three penalties.
• Martin Frk, who made his season debut with Halifax on Friday, was a Mooseheads worst -3.
• Gauthier also had six shots and five hits. What an incredible season.
• This was the Sea Dogs’ last game at Harbour Station until December 30. Geez.  
• Found this on YouTube. Reasons 1365, 1366, and 1367 why Fleaburn is awesome.

• I didn’t watch this game and missed part of the first because I had to write a stupid exam. Bad times. On a brighter note, Tim Roszell sure knows how to call a hockey game.
• Best line of the night: “Santa Clause is in the building tonight. Don’t want to be naughty with Santa here.” – Tom Roszell

Big game for the Sea Dogs in Halifax tomorrow. It’s a 3pm start, so the game basically starts in, like, an hour.