The Halifax Mooseheads are one game from losing the QMJHL Finals, losing toinght 6-3 in game five. It was a lot closer than it looked, with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies scoring two empty net goals late in the game.
The majority of the scoring all took place within the first period. Rouyn-Noranda jumped out to a 4-0 lead with four straight unanswered goals in the first frame.
Peter Abbandonato opened the scoring at 5:45 of the first, followed by Rafael Harvey-Pinard at 10:08 which came on the power play. Jakub Lauko put the Huskies up 3-0 when he scored at 1:40 later and William Cyr notched his second of the playoffs at 14:23 to widen the gap to 4-0.
Amazingly, however, the scoring was not over in the first period, as Halifax fought back to cut the lead in half. Arnaud Durandeau scored at 16:29 of the first to get the Mooseheads on the board and break the shutout. Then, with two seconds remaining the the wild opening period, Rapael Lavoie made it 4-2 when he scored from Benoit-Olivier Groulx and Jocktan Chainey.
After a scoreless second period, Samuel Asselin scored just 3:57 into the third on the power play to make it 4-3 Rouyn-Noranda.
Halifax would pull goaltender Alexis Gravel once with about a minute to go but the Huskies’ Rafael Harvey-Pinard potted his second of the game into the empty net. The Mooseheads pulled Gravel again following the faceoff after that goal and Harvey-Pinard scored again into an empty net to complete the hat trick.
In goal, Gravel made 39 saves on 43 shots against for Halifax while Samuel Harvey stopped 18 of 21 for Rouyn-Noranda. Harvey was named the game’s second star while his teammate Joel Teasdale – with four assists on the night – was the game’s first star. Groulx for Halifax was the third star with two assists.
The Mooseheads were 1-for-3 on the power play while the Huskies were 1-for-4.
Chainey had the assist for a point, was a minus-1 and had one shot on goal tonight.
Game six will be played on Saturday, May 11 at 5 PM ET (4 PM local time) in Halifax. The Huskies have a chance to close things out then and head to the Memorial Cup as champions of the QMJHL.