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QMJHL Halifax Mooseheads

A Wild Wednesday in Halifax

November 1, 2023 - Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL)
Halifax Mooseheads News Release


You never quite know what to expect for drama from the Mooseheads these days, and Wednesday night at Scotiabank Centre was no exception. The Herd erased a four-goal deficit in the third period to come all the way back and defeat the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan 5-4 in an absolutely wild game.

Mathieu Cataford began the comeback from a 4-nothing hole 6:59 into the final period of regulation and capped off the victory with the winner in the fourth round of the shootout, leaving the hometown fans almost as stunned as the Titan. It was also a historic night for forward Jordan Dumais, whose two assists gave him the all-time franchise record for career assists with 185. Brandon Benedict had held the record for 20 years with 184. Dumais is also just nine points shy of Benedict's career franchise points record of 303.

The Moose had a decent start tempo-wise in the first period but failed to put anything behind import goalie Antoine Keller - who stopped the first 32 shots he faced before the Bathurst collapse in the third period. The Titan opened the scoring late in the first period on Igor Mburanumwe's first goal with the team since a trade from Victoriaville. Absolutely nothing went right for the Moose in the middle frame as Bathurst scored three more from Donovan Arsenault, Colby Huggan and Joseph Henneberry to build the 4-0 advantage. Halifax didn't appear to have much fight in their game through 40 minutes and the Wednesday night crowd didn't have anything to cheer about.

Cataford changed the mood when he walked in from the circle on the power play to bury his seventh goal of the season. Then it was Jake Furlong's turn to keep the momentum going by slicing the Titan lead to 4-2 just 2:42 later when he lit the lamp off a feed from Brody Fournier. Dumais had the secondary assist to set the team record.

The buzz started to build around the rink and fans could sense something special when Jack Martin joined the scoring party at the 12:36 mark of the period to make it a 4-3 game. Martin converted on a set-up by rookie Lou Levesque and the ice was completely tilted in favour of the Mooseheads.

The biggest roar of the period came just a few shifts later as Levesque once again had a hand in setting up a huge goal. The 17-year-old forward drove down the wing, fired the puck on net and Markus Vidicek was ready and waiting to bang in the rebound to even the score 4-4 with 3:15 remaining in regulation time. Halifax fired 16 shots on net in the one-sided third period to force overtime. The extra period didn't solve anything despite some decent scoring chances for both teams. Mathis Rousseau then stopped three-out-of-four Titan shooters in the shootout while Markus Vidicek and Mathieu Cataford found twine for the Herd to finish the comeback.

Rousseau finished the game with 24 saves while Keller was extremely busy with 44 saves.

The Mooseheads, first in the CHL Top 10 Rankings, upped their record to 11-4-1-0 through 16 games. The Herd will continue the homestand on Friday night at 7pm when they host the Rimouski Oceanic before entertaining the Sherbrooke Phoenix Saturday at 7pm on Mooseheads Fight Cancer Night. The team will wear special purple jerseys to be auctioned off in support of the Mooseheads Charitable Foundation. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.ca.

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Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League Stories from November 1, 2023


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