Leaver making strong first impression

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

Two games into the Saint John Sea Dogs' 2023-24 season, goaltender Patrick Leaver has likely been the team's best player.

Leaver, who signed as a free agent a few weeks ago, made 37 saves in his QMJHL debut on Friday, a 6-4 Sea Dogs victory over the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. Then on Saturday he followed that up with a 51-save shootout loss to the Titan.

The overage netminder faced the most shots (95) and made the most saves (88) of any goaltender in the league over the weekend.

While Leaver has been impressive, Saint John's defensive play certainly needs some work. The team went with seven defensemen in both games this weekend but the unit, which is supposed to be a strength of this year's team, struggled at times against Bathurst.

There's certainly plenty of time to work on defense — and getting a healthy Matteo Mann into the lineup sometime next month will be a big (literally) boost as well.

• Vince Elie, Eriks Mateiko and Pavel Simek each scored twice on the weekend. If Elie can consistently produce this season, it would be a huge help to Saint John's offense.
• Peter Reynolds, in his first weekend as Sea Dogs captain, had three assists.
• Mathis Gauthier was a team best +3.
• At the time of this writing, Bathurst's Alexandre Lallier is the only player to receive a suspension from Saturday's rough stuff. Lallier has been suspended one game for instigating his fight against Noah Reinhart.
• After watching Saturday's rough stuff, there's definitely going to be some confusion (and interpretation) around the new fighting rules. It was quite clear as well that players will do everything to keep their gloves on during scrums.
• This was Reinhart's first career QMJHL fight.

The Sea Dogs are back in action on Friday and Saturday when they host the Cape Breton Eagles. Cape Breton was outscored 13-1 in back-to-back home losses to the Moncton Wildcats this past weekend.