QMJHL Round-up: Sea Dogs stumble out of gate

The Saint John Sea Dogs opened the QMJHL season in style, unveiling their banners in front of 4,550 fans at Harbour Station Thursday night. They then lost their opening game 3-1 to the hands of the Moncton Wildcats, missing 10 regulars to NHL camps.

The next night, the Sea Dogs ventured to Bathurst, where they were trounced 8-1 by the hometown Acadie-Bathurst Titan. Titan right winger Zach O’Brien scored a hat trick and added an assist. Center Matthew Bissonnette had five points, including four assists, and right winger Sebastien Trudeau had a goal and three assists. The Dogs were missing 11 regulars from that contest.

The Sea Dogs are making due with what they have, but they will have to ice this bare-bones line-up until the core components of their team return from NHL duties, which could be anywhere from this week to early October. The Sea Dogs play the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles in Sydney, NS, next Friday, and play the P.E.I. Rocket on Sunday.

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The Victoriaville Tigres stormed out of the gate this weekend, winning both their games by a combined score of 14-5.

The Tigres beat the Quebec Remparts in Quebec City by a score of 6-3, and then followed that up with an 8-2 win over the Rimouski Oceanic in Rimouski. Tigres forward Yanni Gourde had 10 points in the two games to lead the league in scoring at this point. His teammate, Philippe Maillet, is second with nine points, including six goals to lead the league in that department.

The Tigres return home this week, opening their home schedule against the Baie-Comeau Drakkar on Friday, and welcoming the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies the next night.

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The Blainville-Boisbriand Armada began their first season in the north of Montreal last weekend. The Armada won two games on the road, beating Rimouski 3-1 and beating Quebec 4-2. Etienne Marcoux got both wins in the cage for the Armada.

E.J. Faust had three points in the two games to lead the team, and Dylan Anderson, Christopher Clapperton, Raphael Pouliot, Vincent Richer and Jess Tanguy each had two.

The Armada play one game next week, their first game on home ice against the Gatineau Olympiques this Friday.

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Speaking of the Armada, the team finally iced their new look this past weekend. Gone are the red and white of the Montreal Juniors, and in are the black and white of the Armada.

Their white jerseys have a single black stripe in the centre of the jersey, running through the logo, a la Montreal Canadiens. Their black jersey features the inverse, a white stripe across the center of a black jersey.

The A logo of the Armada graces the front, and a side patch of BB is on each shoulder. The jerseys are worn with black pants and socks with a singular thick stripe across the center.

In other jersey news, the Moncton Wildcats quietly unveiled a new jersey set to their fans last weekend. The new jerseys are in the style of the recent Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins style.

The white jersey features red shoulder yokes with a blue stripe across the front and back of the shoulders, and three stripes on the sleeves, in the order of red-blue-red. The bottom hem stripes are unchanged, as is the number font.

The red jersey features a blue shoulder yoke with white stripes across the front and back, with three stripes on the sleeves in the white-blue-white order. The cat scratch across the back of the hem stripe is still prominent on both jerseys, and the socks are unchanged.

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Seven was a popular score for teams last Saturday, as four of the five games featured the victor scoring the lucky number of goals. Chicoutimi downed Drummondville 7-6, Shawinigan shut out Val D’Or 7-0, Acadie-Bathurst beat Halifax 7-3 and P.E.I. defeated Cape Breton 7-4.

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Three Titan feature prominently behind the two aforementioned Tigres in the scoring race thus far in the young QMJHL season. Titan RW Zach O’Brien is tied with Philippe Maillet for second behind Gourde with nine points, and sitting one behind Maillet for the league lead in goals with five. O’Brien is the only player in the QMJHL to have scored both his team’s game winning goals.

His teammates Matthew Bissonnette and Sebastien Trudeau are tied for fourth in scoring with eight points apiece. Jessyko Bernard of the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies and Michael Bournival of the Shawinigan Cataractes are tied for sixth with six points, including five goals each. The top ten is rounded out by P.E.I.’s Ben Duffy, Baie-Comeau’s Frederic Gamelin and P.E.I.’s Matej Beran.

Five goalies won two games over the first weekend of play: Shawinigan’s Alex Dubeau, Blainville-Boisbriand’s Etienne Marcoux, Acadie-Bathurst’s Robert Steeves, Gatineau’s Francois Lacerte, Baie-Comeau’s Antonio Mastropietro and Victoriaville’s Brandon Whitney. Dubeau leads the league in GAA with a 0.67 mark, and a .973 save percentage.

Beran is tied for the rookie scoring lead with five points, including three goals. Halifax’s Nathan MacKinnon also has five points in two games, but he has yet to find the back of the net. P.E.I.’s Tomas Pavelka has four points.

You can reach Mike on Twitter @MikeRSanderson or via email at mikersanderson@gmail.ca