Young Mooseheads Already Battle Tested : Game 2 Tonight

After a historic 7 game second round playoff series against the Quebec Remparts, the Halifax Mooseheads find themselves going head to head with the Rimouski Oceanic in the league semi finals. As the 6th seed in the playoffs the Mooseheads have secured home ice advantage versus the 7th seed Oceanic. The two teams opened their series last night in Halifax in front of a sold out Metro Centre crowd. What was an electric atmosphere gradually dissipated as the Oceanic pulled away with a 3-0 lead towards the end of the 2nd period. The Metro Centre fuse was briefly lit, predictably by the teams hottest scorer, Captain Cameron Critchlow. After adding another goal in the 3rd period the Oceanic proved that they were the more prepared of the two teams on this night, and ultimately claimed the 4-1 victory in game 1. Blame it on the emotional let down of the game 7 OT win in Quebec City if you like, but the bottom line of the game was goaltending. Jacob Gervais-Chouinard was spectacular at times in net for Rimouski making 29 saves. Zachary Fucale, the still 16 year old star goalie for the Mooseheads had his weakest showing of the 2012 playoffs, allowing 4 goals on only 14 shots. While they were not all soft goals, several were terrific shots by the Oceanic, picking corners. It is still expected that games in which the Mooseheads hold their opponents to just 14 shots, they generally come out ahead. That said, blame does not fall all on Fucale.

Game 2 of the series goes tonight in Halifax, another sell out crowd will take in the game as the Mooseheads attempt to not repeat their start from the previous series with Quebec, falling behind by multiple games to start a series. There may not be enough "Moose Magic" left for another comeback of those proportions. The final few minutes of game 1 ended with a lot of hard hitting and over-due playoff animosity. The game lacked much emotion up until that point. It began with a thunderous open ice hit delivered by Moosehead star Nathan MacKinnon. Completely clean, but the Oceanic took exception to the MacKinnon hit. A scrum ensued resulting in 4 players receiving roughing or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. Moosehead enforcer Sawyer Hannay was then ejected from the game prior to the next puck drop for attempting to solicit a dance partner from the Oceanic side of the ice. He didn't get his chance to drop the gloves before he was removed from the game. 

Coach Dominique Ducharme will probably re-enforce everything that Halifax did in game 1, but emphasize that it needs to be done with a bit more effort and urgency, an environment that the team has clearly shown they can respond to. Outshooting your opponent 2-1 will likely get you a win, expect a similar output from Halifax with more focus on getting to the net to cash in on rebounds which were controlled very well yesterday by Gervais-Chouinard. MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin were kept in check by the Oceanic defenders and will look to create much more on the offensive side of the ice this evening. Like in many evenly matched playoff games however, it will once again likely come down to who wants it more.