There is no shame in losing to the first-place team in the QMJHL by just two goals.
The rebuilding Halifax Mooseheads hung with the league-leading Sherbrooke Phoenix until the very end Saturday on the road, eventually running out of time in a 4-2 loss.
"I'm satisfied with two periods - the first and third," said Halifax head coach J.J. Daigneault. "We stayed in it the whole game but in the second period the way we played fuelled their offence. They're a top offensive team in the league and they have the best power play but we were taking bad offensive zone penalties, turning the puck over and just the way we managed the puck hurt us."
After playing to a 1-1 stalemate in the first period, Sherbrooke pulled ahead 2-1 in the second. The teams traded goals in the third period to make it 3-2 before Samuel Poulin's insurance goal with 5:48 left gave the Phoenix some breathing room.
"We just have to play the right way and be consistent," Daigneault said. "We have a coaching staff that spends a lot of time scouting opponents and tonight we wanted the puck behind their D and avoid turnovers between the blue lines. We did that in the first and we had some chances.
"We also knew they're a team that gambles at times so they gave us two two-on-ones in the first and a three-on-two that we scored on. We knew we were going to get chances but we gave them way too many in the second period. I'm happy with the effort overall but we just didn't play with smarts in the second and that really killed us."
Nathael Roy, Taro Jenzsch and Alex-Olivier Voyer had the other goals for the Phoenix, who improve to 33-7-3-1. D'Artagnan Joly and Marcel Barinka were the scorers for the Mooseheads (17-22-2-1). Barinka's goal was his second in his past two outings after going scoreless for 33 games.
Alexis Gravel stopped 43 shots in an excellent showing for Halifax and Samuel Hlavaj made 23 saves for Sherbrooke.
"Gravy played unbelievable," Daigneault said. "I'm very happy with the way he's playing. He gave us a big game in Victo (on Friday) and tonight he gave us a chance to win. That's what I addressed between periods with the players. We weren't playing the right way and I said 'Listen, he's giving us a game and he's ready to play, why don't we play smart in front of him instead of having the best team in the league pepper him with shots.'
"There's obviously a lot for us to learn and I can find excuses and say 'We have a young team, we lost a lot of players' but I don't want to go that route. I'd rather keep teaching and with that the guys will get better because we'll have that effort level behind it."
The Mooseheads wrap up their three-game trip against the Gatineau Olympiques on Sunday.
Keegan Hunt, Sonny Kabatay, Gavin Hart, Ozzie King and Justin Barron did not dress for Halifax.
Eagles 8, Islanders 2: In Charlottetown, Liam Kidney had two goals and an assist and recently acquired forwards Shawn Element (one goal, one assist) and Tyler Hinam (three assists) helped set the pace for the Cape Breton offence.
Felix Lafrance, Egor Sokolov and Jarrett Baker also scored for the Eagles and William Trudeau and Justin Gill were the Islanders scorers.
Kevin Mandolese made 34 saves for Cape Breton and Jacob Goobie and Matthew Welsh combined to make 26 stops for Charlottetown.
