2018-08-21

The preseason continued for the Halifax Mooseheads on Tuesday night against Cape Breton as they played in front of their home fans for the first time with a sold-out crowd on hand at the cozy Dartmouth 4Pad.

Cape Breton staged a last minute comeback to win 3-2 in overtime with Mooseheads preseason killer Tyler Hylland front and centre. Hylland tied the game with 48 seconds remaining in regulation and then ended the contest with his fifth goal in two games against the Herd at the 1:34 mark of the extra period.

BOX SCORE

The game marked a rematch of Sunday’s kick-off to the exhibition season with the Screaming Eagles taking down the Herd 5-1 at Centre 200 on the strength of Hylland’s hat trick. The opening period was scoreless despite the Moose outshooting the visitors 9-6 which included some excellent shifts from the line of Raphael Lavoie, Cole Stewart and Marcel Barinka.

East Hants native Shaun Miller broke the scoreless deadlock at 11:54 of the second period with his team on the power play. He jumped on a crossing pass and had a wide-open side of the net to bang it in behind Jonathan Pickrem who had entered the game moments earlier after Alex Gravel stopped all six shots he faced in 31 plus minutes of action.

The Cape Breton lead didn’t last too long though as a dominate Raphael Lavoie set-up Marcel Barinka on the power play and the CHL Import newcomer made a great first impression on the fans in Moose Country with his first goal. That tally came about three minutes after Miller’s initial strike.

Arnaud Durandeau put on a display late in the period when he kept the puck and danced around the defense before picking the left side of the net, producing a few gasps from the Mooseheads faithful. The goal by the New York Islanders prospect came at the 19:34 mark and was assisted by Cole Stewart.

It looked as though the Moose would be able to hang on after Jonathan Pickrem made an astonishing save with three minutes to go as he dove back and reached out to pull the puck off the goal line. Durandeau then had a glorious chance to seal the win when he got the puck alone in front of the net but shot it high over the shoulder of winning goalie Daniel Thompson. The Cape Breton netminder stopped 22 of 24 shots after relieving starter Alex-William Maheux. Halifax had the edge in shots 40-24. Marcel Barinka and Tyler Hylland led both sides in shots with five each.

Eric Veilleux stood behind the bench for the first time after watching from the press box in Sydney on Sunday.

The Mooseheads will travel to Acadie-Bathurst on Wednesday night at 7pm and will host the Titan in Wolfville on Friday at 7pm at Acadia University. Tickets are available for the Wolfville game at boxoffice.acadiau.ca.