A final look at the pre-season

Saint John Sea Dogs

SAINT JOHN - The Saint John Sea Dogs are pre-season champions.

The Sea Dogs finished with the most of points (13) of any QMJHL team during exhibition play and finished tied with the Shawinigan Cataractes for the most wins (six).

What does all of this mean? Absolutely nothing! But hey, any positive momentum heading into the regular season - especially after how the past few seasons have gone in Saint John - is, well, a positive thing.

Here are a few more stats from Saint John's eight pre-season games:

• The Sea Dogs finished with a 6-1-1-0 record with both losses coming against the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
• Saint John scored a league high 45 goals for an average of 5.6 per game.
• Josh Lawrence led Saint John in pre-season scoring with nine points (five goals and four assists). He appeared in six of Saint John's eight pre-season contests, which is a lot for a veteran.
• William Dufour led the team in goals with six. He scored at least once in all four pre-season games he appeared in.
• Lawrence, Peter Reynolds and Vince Elie all scored five goals while Carter McCluskey had four.
• Riley Bezeau had a team high six assists in six games. Nico Laforge had five.
• Noah Patenaude allowed five goals on 83 shots in just over 136 minutes of work, giving him a 2.21 GAA and .940 SV%.
• Jonathan Lemieux rebounded from a rough debut. The overager allowed 10 goals on 83 shots in just under 154 minutes of work, giving him a 3.90 GAA and .880 SV%.

Saint John begins regular season play on Friday night at TD Station, hosting the Charlottetown Islanders.