(Photo: Trevor MacMillan/Halifax Mooseheads)
The Halifax Mooseheads stayed hot versus the Acadie-Bathurst Titan with a 6-3 victory Sunday afternoon at the Scotiabank Centre to improve to their divisional best 6-1-1-1 record.
The usual suspects contributed in big ways once again for Halifax with the top line of Jordan Dumais, Markus Vidicek and Mathieu Cataford continuing to roll with a combined nine points on the afternoon, four of which were goals going to an unstoppable Dumais.
Adding to an impressive start to the season for the trio, the line already has 53 combined points to their names just nine games into the season.
Bathurst struck late in the first period with Halifax native Ben Allison finding the loose puck and capitalizing on a sprawling Brady James in goal, putting the Titan in the driver’s seat early on.
Halifax took the wheel back 23 seconds later where Cataford found Dumais through traffic with a cross-ice pass to give him his 19th point in nine games to start the season.
The top line continued to click with Dumais continuing his scoring ways, finding another goal with a highlight reel move to beat Sergei Litvinov to capture his seventh multi-point game this season.
Vidicek added a marker at the end of the period to give the Mooseheads some insurance heading into the first intermission.
The Mooseheads led in shots 16-8, but that was short lived with the Titan taking control with a 10-4 advantage in shots in the second frame.
The Titan used the momentum to close the gap in the second period with two goals, one on an extended 5-on-3 powerplay from Ty Higgins before the veteran Dylan Andrews knotted the game up just six minutes after the 3-2 goal.
Despite the effort from the road squad to take control of the game, it was Jordan Dumais once again doing everything in his power to restore the lead for the Mooseheads. The goal brought the crowd to its feet, and Dumais locked down his second career hat-trick in the process.
Vidicek scored the insurance marker just five minutes into the third frame to put the game out of reach for the Titan. Dumais scored on the empty net to lock down the win to improve the team’s record to 6-1-1-1 and moving into sole possession of second place in the QMJHL scoring race with 22 points, behind only Justin Gill of the Sherbrooke Phoenix for the league lead.
Following the match, Dumais earned the honours of being named QMJHL Player of the Week with six goals and two assists to his name in three contests last week.
The three game road trip will feature contests against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, the Val D’Or Foreurs and a rematch versus the Rouyn Noranda Huskies after dropping their home contest Saturday night 3-2 in the shootout.
For a team with the aspirations of the Mooseheads to contend, the road trip does not only provide an early litmus test for the team’s standing with the top teams in the league, but it also represents a glimpse of what is yet to come for the Maritime Division leaders.
