Hard-luck Wildcats on the brink
Published Thursday April 9th, 2009
Moncton loses 4-2 to Rimouski Oceanic in QMJHL quarterfinal action
RIMOUSKI, Que. - The Moncton Wildcats are on the brink of elimination.
They continued to be plagued by a brutal power play in a 4-2 loss to the Rimouski Oceanic in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoff action last night in front of 4,317 fans at Le Colisée de Rimouski.
Moncton trails 3-1 in the best-of-seven quarterfinal and it will be fighting to stay alive when the series resumes tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the J.-Louis Levesque Arena. Game 6, if necessary, will be on Sunday in Rimouski.
"We said all the right things in the dressing room before the game, but unfortunately it didn't turn into a great performance on the ice," said Wildcats captain Matt Eagles.
"It hurts when you get scored against on the first shift of the game, but you've got to be able to bounce back from those things and we didn't do that tonight."
Moncton played extremely well in the first three games and with any kind of luck could've had a 2-1 or 3-0 series lead. It was a much different story last night.
"I think the difference is that we believed in ourselves in the first three games," said Eagles. "I think once they got that first goal tonight, guys started to doubt whether we could win this game or win the series. We'll have to fix that for next game and make sure we know that we can play with them.
"We weren't as physical tonight as the first three games and that goes back to believing in ourselves. When you believe in yourselves you play aggressive and you play physical. Tonight we didn't do that at all.''
Keven Veilleux, Patrice Cormier, Logan MacMillan and Luca Cunti scored for Rimouski, which held a 41-26 shots edge. The 2009 Memorial Cup host Oceanic have 27 wins in the past 29 games.
Zach Sill and Tomy Joly countered for Moncton. The Wildcats were the league's second best road team in the regular season, but they're just 1-3 in enemy territory in the playoffs.
"I don't know how to explain that," said Sill. "I don't know how we can come out and play like that in a game that means so much. It's unacceptable. Our special teams really let us down tonight. Three of their four goals came on special teams.
"We always said we had to stay disciplined and play five-on-five if we want to win this series. When you take as many penalties as we did tonight, it doesn't get us anywhere."
On the power play, Moncton was 0-for-6 and Rimouski was 2-for-9. The Wildcats are 4-for-51 on the power play in the playoffs, including 1-for-23 in this series.
Rimouski came out hard in the first period while Moncton hardly came out at all. The Oceanic dominated from start to finish, held a 19-3 shots edge and generated lots of great scoring chances.
The Oceanic buzzed the offensive zone seemingly at will against an opponent that looked overmatched. The turning point was every faceoff because as soon as the puck was dropped the hometown squad was in complete control.
The Oceanic scored on their first shot just 53 seconds into the game. Veilleux carried the puck down the left wing on a two-on-one break, kept the puck and fired a bullet 20-foot wrist shot past Wildcats goaltender Nicola Riopel.
The Wildcats were on their heels and desperately hanging on in the first period, but they only trailed 1-0 at the intermission. Riopel made several good saves and they came up with two key penalty kills.
Moncton truly had nowhere to go but up after the first period. It came out much stronger in an evenly played second period that featured good back-and-forth action and momentum swings.
Rimouski held a 13-12 shots edge in the second period and extended its lead to 3-1 after 40 minutes.
The Oceanic were leading 25-5 in shots when they grabbed a 2-0 lead on the power play at 4:42. Cormier did the damage on a shot from the slot, the Cap-Pele native's fourth goal of the playoffs and his second in this series.
The Oceanic were leading 27-7 in shots at the midway mark of the contest and looked to be in complete control. The Wildcats then cut their deficit to 2-1 on a Sill's shorthanded unassisted breakaway goal at 10:45.
Sill intercepted an opposition pass in the Wildcats zone, chipped the puck by a defenceman and streaked in on a breakaway. He charged hard to the net, made a backhand deke move and scored while crashing heavily into Oceanic goaltender Maxim Gougeon.
Gougeon was laying on the ice for several minutes following that goal. The Wildcats had a golden opportunity to create a tie about 10 seconds after play resumed, but Scott Brannon failed to beat Gougeon on a breakaway.
Gougeon looked uncomfortable as he bent over while making that save and a couple others over the remainder of the second period. He did, however, make some key saves to hold the Wildcats off the scoreboard.
The Wildcats had an opportunity to pull even on the power play. But Cornet picked up a brutal giveaway in the neutral zone, got stopped by Riopel on a shorthanded breakaway and MacMillan cashed in on the rebound to put the oceanic ahead 3-1 at 13:22.
Moncton had some reason to be optimistic of its chances of making a comeback. Rimouski made a goaltending change after the second period, replacing the injured Gougeon with backup Matthew Dopud who was making his first appearance in this year's playoffs.
The Oceanic held an 11-9 shots edge in the third period and scored on the power play at 1:10 to grab a 4-1 lead. Cunti cashed in from the edge of the goalmouth on a scrambly play to give the hometown squad a three-goal cushion.
The Wildcats showed no sense of quit, continued to work hard and pulled to within 4-2 at 11:13 with Joly scoring on a goalmouth rebound. They were trailing 40-22 in shots at that point.
The Wildcats pulled their goaltender for an extra attacker with two minutes remaining, but they couldn't even get set up in the offensive zone to create a threat.
"We have to be much sharper and we have to execute," said Moncton head coach Danny Flynn. "We have to make good decisions with the puck and we didn't have our best game in that regard.
"We never quit. We have big hearts. We just have to make some plays under pressure.
Riopel did a tremendous job of keeping us in the game in the first period. I thought in the second and third periods we started to get back into the game, but it was a case of far too many minutes spent on special teams."
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