Recap: Sea Dogs lose 7-2

FINAL: Saint John 2, Moncton 7

MONCTON - The second half of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League season is off to a rough start for the Saint John Sea Dogs.

The Sea Dogs allowed four goals on 26 shots in the first period in a 7-2 loss to the Moncton Wildcats on Saturday at Avenir Centre.

Despite the lopsided score, it was another... interesting game between the two. The Sea Dogs were in it, opening the scoring just 6:09 in. Then they were out of it, allowing four goals. Then they started to get back into it, with Nicolas Bilodeau scoring at the buzzer which was followed by the Dogs getting quite a bit of power play time in the second period to try and cut the deficit even more.

But Saint John's power play struggles continued, going 1/5 and not allowing the Dogs to get any closer. Moncton added a fifth goal in the second and two more in the third.

Caleb Desnoyers scored a pair of goals for Moncton while singles came from Markus Vidicek, Riley Sampson, Etienne Morin, Adam Fortier-Gendron and Mitchell Wagner. Jacob Steinman made 29 saves in the win.

Bilodeau and Dylan Rozzi scored for Saint John. Justin Robinson made 41 stops in the loss.

The loss pushes the Sea Dogs below .500 with a 16-17-0-0 record. They've now dropped four straight road games.

LINEUP

Morin - Groulx - Peddle

Rozzi - Yared - Beveridge

Reynolds - Dubé - Cross

Calder - Beaulieu

Tivey - Amyot

Bilodeau - Mann

Bonnet - Scanzano

Henry

Robinson

Weeks

SCRATCHES: The Sea Dogs were without goaltender Charles-Edward Gravel (injury or sickness); forwards Eriks Mateiko (world juniors), Coen Miller (healthy) and Florian Schenk (healthy); and defensemen Olivier Duhamel (injury) and Matthew MacLean (injury).

DEBUT: 16-year-old defenseman Joshua Roy made his QMJHL debut. Henry, a sixth-round pick of Saint John in this year's QMJHL Entry Draft, is a NCAA Lindenwood commit who has been playing with the MHL's Fredericton Red Wings. Henry was the team's seventh defensemen and finished the game a -3.

NOTES: The Wildcats wore their black third jerseys... Moncton was without forwards Juraj Pekarcik and Julius Sumpf due to the world juniors while defenseman Dylan MacKinnon served a one-game suspension... defenseman Matteo Mann returned to the Saint John lineup, playing in his first game since Dec. 6... forward Tyler Peddle also returned to the Saint John lineup, playing in his first game since Nov. 29... with Charles-Edward Gravel not available, the Sea Dogs had Evan Weeks of the NB/PEI under-18 league's Kensington Wild backing up Justin Robinson... Moncton's 26 first period shots are the most by any QMJHL team in a first period this season... Isiah Shantz was given a five minute major and game misconduct for a check from behind in the first period... Zachary Morin now has points in four straight games... Robinson, who did not dress for the final couple games of the first half due to an injury, fell to 0-3 against the Wildcats this season... Ben Cross and Egan Beveridge each had five shots... faceoffs were 40-25 in favour of Moncton... Etienne Morin had a goal and three assists... attendance was 6,821.

HIGHLIGHTS

NEXT GAME: The Sea Dogs return to action on Tuesday afternoon, visiting the Acadie-Bathurst Titan at 2 p.m.