Recap: Sea Dogs lose 5-4 (OT)

FINAL: Saint John 4, Halifax 5 (OT)

HALIFAX - Despite heavily outshooting the Halifax Mooseheads for parts of the game, the Saint John Sea Dogs fell 5-4 in overtime on Friday at Scotiabank Centre.

Brady Schultz netted the winner at 3:19 of overtime to give the Mooseheads the extra point and end a two-game losing streak. Mathieu Cataford scored a hat trick for Halifax while Ethan Larmand also added a single. Jack Milner made 34 stops in the win.

Jacob Beaulieu, Egan Beveridge, Kency Pierre-Noel and Vince Elie scored for Saint John. Patrick Leaver made 16 saves in the loss.

Saint John outshot Halifax 38-21 overall, which included 17-4 in the third period. But Saint John could never pull away from the Mooseheads, who stayed within a goal of the Sea Dogs or led. This felt like a game the Sea Dogs let slip away from them.

Despite outshooting the Mooseheads 9-4 in the opening frame, the Sea Dogs trailed 2-1 after one. Beaulieu opened the scoring at 9:40 but Cataford scored twice — once on a power play and another shortly after a man advantage ended — to give the home side the lead.

At 11:53 of the second, the Sea Dogs tied the game again when Beveridge converted. Just under two minutes later, Larmand put in a rebound to once again put Halifax in front.

The Sea Dogs would tie things up and head into the dressing room with a 3-3 tie. At 18:06, Pierre-Noel flew through Halifax's defense and beat Milner with a deke, netting yet another beautiful goal.

Elie put in a rebound at 7:48 of the third to give Saint John a 4-3 lead. The Sea Dogs controlled much of the third, outshooting the Mooseheads 17-2 at the final commercial break of the period. But not long after play resumed, a Cataford shot went off Elie's stick, through some traffic and past Leaver to make it a 4-4 game.

In overtime, Schultz won the game at 3:19, speeding down the wing, cutting in front and beating Leaver upstairs to make it a 5-4 final.

LINEUP

Simek - P. Reynolds - Reinhart

Akkouche - Elie - Pierre-Noel

D. Reynolds - Beaulieu - Beveridge

Calder - Laforge - Benoit

Tivey - Gauthier

Bilodeau - Ianniello

MacLean - Dassylva

Leaver

Robinson

SCRATCHES: The Sea Dogs were without forwards Eriks Mateiko (Latvia world junior camp) and Chad Bellemare (healthy) along with defensemen Benjamin Amyot (injury) and Matteo Mann (injury).

NOTES: The Sea Dogs went with a "normal" 12 forward and six defensemen lineup, which has not been a common occurrence... weirdly, this was Saint John's first visit to Halifax this season... Mooseheads forward Markus Vidicek, who missed last Saturday's Sea Dogs-Mooseheads game while attending Team Canada world junior camp, was back in the Halifax lineup... Halifax's first goal at 12:49 of the opening frame came on just their third shot of the game... Egan Beveridge's goal was his first since Nov. 5... Ethan Larmand's goal was his first in the QMJHL... Jacob Beaulieu and Liam Welsh dropped the gloves in the third period for a rare QMJHL fight. It was Saint John's second fighting major of the season... Pavel Simek had five shots... this was the 1,000th win in Mooseheads franchise history... attendance was 7,445.

BEUATY GOAL: All Kency Pierre-Noel seems to do is score beautiful goals.

HIGHLIGHTS

NEXT GAME: The Sea Dogs and Mooseheads meet again tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at Scotiabank Centre.