FINAL: Saint John 3, Halifax 1
HALIFAX – Sebastien Auger’s 37 saves backstopped the Saint John Sea Dogs to a solid 3-1 road win over the Halifax Mooseheads at
Scotiabank Centre on Saturday night.
Luke Green, Matthew Highmore and
Mitchell Dempsey scored for the Sea Dogs in the victory but the big story was
Auger who came up huge at key moments in the game, particularly in the third
period when Halifax outshot Saint John 19-4.
The Sea Dogs improved to a Maritimes
Division best 18-6-1-4 with the win. Saint John has won the first two games of
their bizarre three-in-three weekend set and will try for the sweep tomorrow
afternoon.
Halifax’s lone goal on Saturday came
from Timo Meier late in the second period. Zach Fucale didn’t have a fantastic
night in net, allowing three goals on 23 shots.
The Mooseheads fell to 14-14-2-1 with
the loss.
Green opened the scoring at 8:04 of the
first. The defensemen took a pass from his twin brother, sped down the wing,
cut in front and fired the puck over the shoulder of Fucale to make it 1-0
Saint John. The Dogs kept the pressure on following the goal, creating a couple
of good chances.
At 12:36, Adam Marsh centered the puck
to Highmore who redirected it in to give Saint John a 2-0 advantage. Shots were
14-9 in favour of Saint John in the opening period of play.
Midway through the second, Highmore
bumped into Fucale a bit and seemed to upset the Moose goaltender as he rushed
over to the officials to have word at the next whistle. Soon after, at 10:02,
Dempsey threw the puck on net and it somehow slid past Fucale to make it 3-0 Sea
Dogs.
Halifax got on the board at 17:12.
Nikolaj Ehlers, from along the boards, found a streaking Meier who beat Auger
upstairs to make it a 3-1 game. It was fairly back-and-forth second period with
shots ending up 10-5 in favour of Halifax.
The Mooseheads’ comeback attempts were
dealt a major blow 12:00 of the third. Ehlers was called for roughing but,
after arguing the call with the officials, was given a misconduct for abuse of
officials.
It was all Halifax late in third. They
pulled Fucale with 2:30 remaining and were then placed on a power play when
Jakub Zboril was called for roughing at 18:25. Auger came up with some big
saves to keep the Dogs in front until the buzzer sounded.
Shots were 19-4 in favour of the Moose
in the third and 38-23 overall.
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