Mooseheads split home opening weekend after loss to Rimouski

On Sunday, the Halifax Mooseheads returned to the friendly confines of Scotiabank Centre to play host to former Moosehead star Mathieu Cataford and the Rimouski Oceanic.  It wouldn’t take long for the home side to open their account on the scoresheet when Logan Crosby finished a pass from Carlos Handel at the 4:24 mark for his first on the season.  Liam Kilfoil with the second assist on the opening goal.

Some concern on the Mooseheads bench after Brady Schultz and Cataford collided hard in the 1st.  Schultz didn’t return after the hit, and after the start of the second period, the Herd captain was ruled out for the remainder of the contest with what was described only as an upper-body injury.

The Oceanic would strike not once but twice before the second period was 1:30 old.  Alexandre Blais with the tying goal at 1:20 of the second frame, then Dominic Pilote scored just 7 seconds later for Rimouski.  The second goal was the subject of a lengthy review for offside and, in the end, was disallowed to leave the score tied at 1.  Antoine Fontaine would put the Moose back in front, burying a feed from Shawn Carrier on the powerplay at the 2:05 mark. The Moose would extend their lead at the 6-minute mark when Owen Phillips netted his first on the season to make the score 3-1.  Rimouski would get one back with 13:01 left in the period when former Saint John Sea Dog Pavel Schimic would fire one past Mathis Rousseau to make it a one-goal contest.

Late in the second period, the Moose defence corps suffered another setback when Jack Martin was ejected from the contest after a hit on Oceanic forward Anthony Parre, shortening their bench to just 4 defencemen.  The Mooseheads managed to kill off the 5-minute major penalty assessed to Martin for the hit.

Rimouski would tie up the contest early in the 3rd period.  Mathys Dube would beat Rousseau at the 6:54 mark of the period to knot the score at 3.  The Oceanic would take the lead for the 1st time in the game on a goal from Mathieu Cataford, beating Rousseau low to take a 4-3 lead with just over 3 minutes left in the period.  Moosehead’s head coach, Andrew Lord, pulled Rousseau for an extra attacker in the dying seconds of the game, and despite a flurry of chances, the game would end with a 4-3 score.

With the loss, the Moose’s record falls to 6-2 on the season, and the Oceanic’s improves to 3-3-1.

Rimouski forward Pavel Simek with 1st star honours, Mooseheads Owen Phillips was named 2nd star, and the 3rd star went to Alexandre Blais.

The Mooseheads will now head to Bathurst for Wednesday’s 1st half of a home-and-home series with the Titan.  The second half of that series goes Friday night at Scotiabank Centre.  The puck drops on both games at 7, and you will be able to hear all of the action on 95.7 NewsRadio with Garreth MacDonald.