Against all odds, the QMJHL season opened in eight locations on Friday night.
Among those games was a meeting between two old rivals in Sydney. The Cape Breton Eagles welcomed the Halifax Mooseheads to Centre 200, where the Mooseheads won 6-2.
"I liked the effort overall," said Mooseheads head coach J.J. Daigneault. "Everybody who was in the lineup played a good game and participated. They played a pretty gritty game and early on we had a to wait a little bit before we scored. But overall I thought the guys managed the game really well."
It was a typically tense game from the two teams, with plenty of heated moments to kick off a season that will see them face each other 12 times. It was also a virtual dead heat until the late minutes when the Mooseheads stretched a 3-2 lead with a couple of empty-netters and a last-minute goal from rookie James Swan.
Zachary L'Heureux had the key goal when he broke a 2-2 tie with 6:10 remaining and he then took care of the insurance with the first empty-net goal with 1:38 left on the clock.
"We had some indidividuals who had some great games, like Zach," Daigneault said. "He got those two big goals for us and that's something you really like to see early in the season because we have a lot of young kids on our team and tonight they saw, no matter who they were playing against, they could do the job."
Liam Peyton, Markus Vidicek and Cole Foston had the other Mooseheads goals and Liam Kidney and Nathan Larose scored for the Eagles. The goals from Foston, Vidicek and Swan were the first of their QMJHL careers.
"The guys are confident and I actually liked that the players played with a little bit of swag," Daigneault said. "We had a lot of 16-year-old kids out there and all of them did well.
"For me as a coach having probably the youngest team in the Q, it's important for me to make them understand they can play head to head against anyone in the league and not be intimidated by skill or by size or by speed. Right now we're at a point where we're trying to build an identity as a team and I think tonight was a step in the right direction in trying to form that."
Cole McLaren made 25 saves for Halifax and William Grimard stopped 22 shots for Cape Breton.
It was the first opportunity of the year to play in front of a crowd, although Centre 200 was nowhere near capacity because of COVID-19 restrictions. Fans were not allowed in the rinks during the pre-season.
"Obviously people are a little bit scattered here and there," Daigneault said. "But there are people watching our games and that's a lot better than not having anybody at all. The place wasn't empty or full but there were plenty of people and it was a pretty good atmosphere."
The teams meet again in Halifax on Saturday night.
Notes: Keegan Hunt, Alexandre David, Kyle Petten and Justin Barron did not dress for Halifax because of injuries. The Mooseheads recalled defenceman Alex Carr and forward Ethan Landry to round out their roster.
Mooseheads open season with 6-2 win over Eagles
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