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QMJHL Saint John Sea Dogs

Hoffman Leads Sea Dogs To 5-2 Win In Bathurst

October 22, 2009 - Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL)
Saint John Sea Dogs News Release


BATHURST, NB --- Sea Dogs sniper Mike Hoffman continued his torrid scoring pace on Thursday night, tying a franchise record by netting three goals in a 5-2 win over Acadie-Bathurst at the K.C. Irving Regional Centre. The Ottawa Senators prospect has now recorded six goals in his last three games.

Danick Gauthier and Nicholas Pard also scored for Saint John in the impressive road victory, while Stanislav Galiev dished out four assists on the night to move into a tie for third place in the QMJHL's rookie scoring race. Eric Faille and Cameron Critchlow both scored for the Titan in a losing effort.

Meanwhile, between the pipes, veteran Saint John goaltender Marc-Antoine Gelinas (17 saves) outdueled his Acadie-Bathurst counterpart, Nicholas Champion (35 saves), to pick up his eighth victory of the year.

The division-leading Sea Dogs improve to 11-4-1-0 on the season with Thursday's win while the Titan fall to 6-7-2-1, good for fifth place in the QMJHL Atlantic.

After successfully killing off an early-match penalty, Saint John took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period when superstar forward Mike Hoffman tipped a long-distance Yann Sauvé wrist shot to the back of the Titan net to pick up the fourth goal of his overage season. Just ten seconds later Hoffman doubled the visitors' lead, taking a feed from Stanislav Galiev in the neutral zone and zooming past a pair of Acadie-Bathurst defenders prior to deking Champion out of his pads and tucking home a backhand shot to put the finishing touches on a truly sensational offensive strike.

The home team scored two quick goals of their own late in the opening frame, with Cameron Critchlow and Eric Faille tallying markers 49 seconds apart to send Thursday's contest into the first intermission with the score tied 2-2.

Renowned tough guys Mike Thomas and Marshall Worden squared off in a heavyweight bout of epic proportions early in the second period, with the Sea Dogs Captain feeding his rugged opponent several party-sub-sized knuckle sandwiches to take the fight handily and inject a healthy dose of adrenaline into his team's collective demeanor.

Saint John then took a 3-2 lead on a hat-trick-clinching goal from Hoffman. The Kitchener, ON native unleashed a net-seeking missile of a one-timer from the slot that beat Champion high, glove-side to register the eventual game-winner. Steven Anthony and Stanislav Galiev both picked up assists on the power play marker, which came at the 11:27 mark of the middle frame. Danick Gauthier added an insurance goal for the Sea Dogs three-and-a-half minutes later, sneaking a wrist shot past Champion from a tough angle to improve his 2009-10 goals total to five.

Acadie-Bathurst was unable to mount anything resembling a comeback attempt in the third period, with the lone marker of the stanza coming off the stick of 19-year old Sea Dogs forward Nicholas Pard, who wired home his third goal of the year late in regulation to make the final score 5-2 in Saint John's favour.

Up next for the Sea Dogs is a Saturday night contest versus the bottom-feeding Mooseheads in Halifax. The puck drops at 7:00pm as Saint John looks to pick up their twelfth victory of the season in Nova Scotia's capital city.

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Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League Stories from October 22, 2009


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