RECAP: Sea Dogs lose 6-4

FINAL: Saint John 4, Gatineau 6

GATINEAU, Que. - It was close, but the Saint John Sea Dogs found themselves on the losing end of yet another road game.

The Sea Dogs dropped their 11th straight Quebec Major Junior Hockey League contest on Wednesday night in Gatineau, falling 6-4 to the Olympiques. Saint John is now 0-9-0-1 on the road this season.

Saint John has dropped all four games they have played so far on this six-game Quebec road trip. Wednesday's match was definitely the closest - both in play and in score.

Connor LePage scored twice for Gatineau and singles came from Giordano Finoro, Shawn Boudrias, Darien Kielb and Gabriel Bilodeau. Creed Jones made 27 stops in the win.

Robbie Burt scored twice for Saint John while Maxim Cajkovic and Aiden MacIntosh added solo markers. Alex D'Orio made 22 stops in the loss.

The Olympiques opened the scoring at 6:18 of the first period. Finoro carried the puck in and, while using a Sea Dogs defender as a screen, wired a wrist shot past D'Orio. Gatineau scored again at 14:47 when Michael Campoli lost the puck in his own zone and allowed Boudrias to beat D'Orio with a nice move to his forehand, making it 2-0.

Saint John got on the board at 16:10. Cajkovic carried the puck into the zone and skated to the goal line where he threw it in front to Burt who scored. Then at 18:01, Cajkovic wired a wrist shot past Jones from the slot to tie things up at 2-2.

The Olympiques were not done though. At 18:59, Kielb completed a give-and-go with Maxim Trepanier to put Gatineau back in front, 3-2.

LePage scored at 5:44 of the second, firing a wrister from the top of the circle past D'Orio to give the home side a 4-2 advantage.

Burt got Saint John back within one 16:01, sliding through the Gatineau defense in the slot before firing a quick wrist shot past Jones.

The Sea Dogs had a couple other excellent chances in the middle frame but could not connect. Early on, Cajkovic ripped a shot off the post and then, near the end of the period, Burt was stopped by Jones on a breakaway.

Just 47 seconds into the third, Bilodeau fired a point shot that was stopped by D'Orio - but the puck went high in the air and landed in the blue paint behind the Sea Dogs goaltender, ultimately rolling across the line to give Gatineau a 5-3 lead.

Saint John got back within one at 11:28. The puck came to a perfectly placed MacIntosh at the side of the net who beat a down Jones upstairs to cut the deficit to 5-4.

With 1:54 remaining, Metis Roelens found a wide open LePage who scored to give Gatineau a 6-4 advantage - and that's how this game would end.

LINEUP

SCRATCHES: The Sea Dogs were without goaltender Stewart Bagnell; defensemen Charlie DesRoches (U-17s), Jeremie Poirier (U-17s), William Villeneuve (U-17s) and Nikolas Kakouras; along with forwards Josh Lawrence (U-17s), Luke Wilson and Kevin Mason.

NOTES: The Sea Dogs moved Maxim Cajkovic to centre for this game. He recorded a goal and two assists. The rookie import entered the game without a point on this road trip... Robbie Burt has scored three goals in his past two games... Gatineau ended a three-game losing streak... this was Gatineau's second home win in 11 games... Aiden MacIntosh's goal was his first of the season.

NEXT GAME: The Sea Dogs visit the Victoriaville Tigres on Thursday night at 8 p.m.