Recap: Sea Dogs lose 4-3

FINAL: Saint John 3, Rimouski 4

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

RIMOUSKI, QC - The Saint John Sea Dogs are coming home empty handed.

The Sea Dogs fell 4-3 to the Rimouski Oceanic on Saturday at Colisée Financière Sun Life, pushing them below .500 with a 10-11-0-0 record. The team now returns home without any points on this three-game Quebec road trip. All three losses were decided by one goal.

Unlike the previous two games where Saint John fell behind, it was the Sea Dogs who opened the scoring in this one with Eriks Mateiko making it 1-0 just 44 seconds in.

But the Sea Dogs could only keep the Oceanic off the scoreboard for so long. Rimouski outshot Saint John 20-5 in the second period and took a 2-1 lead into the third period. The Oceanic then added two more early in the third.

Saint John did make a game of it. Olivier Groulx scored at 13:12 of the final frame and then Ben Cross made it a one-goal game at 16:16. Saint John would get no closer, though.

Shots in the game ended 36-18 in favour of Rimouski. Saint John registered just seven dangerous scoring chances. 

Justin Robinson, in his only appearance of this road trip, made 32 stops in the loss.

Olivier Theberge, Mael St-Denis, Dominic Pilote and Jacob Mathieu all scored for Rimouski. Samuel St-Hilaire made 15 stops in the loss.

LINEUP

Peddle - Mateiko - Cross

Morin - Groulx - Beveridge

Rozzi - Dubé - Yared

Reynolds - Miller - Beaulieu

Tivey - Duhamel

Bilodeau - Mann

MacLean - Amyot

Robinson

Gravel

SCRATCHES: The Sea Dogs were without defensemen Cruz Scanzano (healthy) and Giuliano Caputo (healthy) along with forwards Reid Calder (healthy) and Florian Schenk (healthy).

NOTES: Travis Crickard remains away from the team due to the U17 World Challenge... Zachary Morin had two assists... Eriks Mateiko now has 11 goals in 18 games on the year... Morin had three shots... Matthew MacLean had four hits... Saint John went 0/3 on the power play... the Sea Dogs are now 7-3-0-0 when scoring first this season... former Sea Dogs forward Pavel Simek had an assist and two shots... attendance was 3,330

HIGHLIGHTS

NEXT GAME: The Sea Dogs visit the Moncton Wildcats on Thursday night at 7 p.m.