Recap: Sea Dogs lose 6-3

FINAL: Saint John 3, Moncton 6

Moncton Wildcats

MONCTON - The Moncton Wildcats proved once again Sunday that they are far from an easy out.

The Wildcats, dressing 17 skaters, defeated the Saint John Sea Dogs 6-3 at Avenir Centre, ending a two-game losing streak. The Sea Dogs had won the past five meetings between the two teams.

Moncton led 3-0 and 4-1 at times in this game. Saint John started to claw back into the game in the third period, making it 4-3 with 6:17 left to play in regulation. With momentum shifting in the Sea Dogs' favour, Jacob Hudson scored a dagger at 15:23, giving the 'Cats some added insurance. Moncton added an empty net goal to make it a 6-3 final.

The Sea Dogs continued an odd trend they've fallen into of late, struggling to get things going offensively in the opening two periods and then finally turning things on for a bit in the third. Saint John had 16 shots in the first two periods combined and then outshot Moncton 16-8 in the final frame.

Saint John mixed up their forward lines prior to this game but it didn't seem to produce much of a spark. The Sea Dogs entered the contest with a 4.10 goals per game average but have now scored less than four goals in two of their past four games.

Cam MacDonald scored a pair of goals for Saint John while Zachary Alchorn also connected. Zachary Emond made 25 saves in the loss.

Francis Langlois and Jacob Hudson each scored a pair of goals for Moncton while singles came from Maxim Barbashev and Thomas Darcy. Vincent Filion made 29 stops in the win.

LINEUP

Burns - MacDonald - Kotkov

Girouard - Lawrence - Francis

Alchorn - Reynolds - Bezeau

Leonard - Carruthers

McCallum - Inniss

Poirier - DesRoches

Casey - Villeneuve

Drapeau

Emond

Patenaude

SCRATCHES: Forwards Charles Savoie (injury), Carter McCluskey (healthy) and Simon Hughes (healthy) along with defensemen Hunter Gartley (injury) and Jan Hampl (not arrived). 

SHAKEUP: After shaking up the defense pairings last week, the Sea Dogs shook up their forward lines ahead of this game. Notably the top two lines of Francis-Reynolds-Kotkov - which had been together most of the restart - and the hot trio of Burns-Lawrence-Girouard were broken up.

STILL HURTING: Defenseman Sam McKinney and forwards Philippe Daoust, Vincent Labelle, Dominic LeBlanc, Yoan Loshing and Gabriel Bernier were all out of the Moncton lineup due to injuries. It's impressive that the Wildcats continue to play this well with so many regulars out of the lineup.

EMOND: Zachary Emond made a few really nice stops in this game, including this one off of Maxim Barbashev in the first period.

Emond with the glove! pic.twitter.com/fRMCB2q4fX

— Saint John Sea Dogs (@SJSeaDogs) April 11, 2021

RICHARD: Connor Richard now has three goals and two assists in 11 games against his old club this season. Overall he has five goals and three assists on the season.

KILLERS: Jacob Hudson had two goals and an assist in this game to give him seven goals and nine assists in eight games against Saint John this year. Maxim Barbashev had a goal and an assist to give him four goals and three assists in four games against the Dogs.

MacDONALD: Cam MacDonald now has goals in back-to-back games and points in four of his past five games. This was his second multi-goal game of the year with his other being a hat trick on Nov. 13 against the Wildcats.

NOTES: Sea Dogs defenseman Brandon Casey was injured in the third period on a big hit by Anthony Hamel in front of the benches. He left the game and did not return... former Wildcats forwards/Sea Dogs killers Alex and Allain Saulnier were in attendance... the attendance was 2,247... these two meet again on Saturday night at TD Station. It's, at this time, the last scheduled meeting between the two.

NEXT GAME: The Sea Dogs take on the Titan in Bathurst on Tuesday at 7 p.m.