Around the Q: Playoff picture clears slightly on eve of final weekend

Article content

The QMJHL playoff scenarios came into a little clearer focus after the Moncton Wildcats 3-2 shootout victory over the Saint John Sea Dogs on Wednesday and Quebec’s subsequent 3-2 shootout loss to Blainville-Boisbriand.

Both affairs featured six rounds of the shootout before it was decided, leaving just a few clouds to clear up with two days of action remaining in the 2023-24 regular campaign.

Some information is confirmed for New Brunswick teams.

To start, Acadie-Bathurst is locked into the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference and will open the playoffs in Halifax next week against the No. 2 Mooseheads. The Titan have won four straight in Halifax this season, outscoring the Mooseheads 15-6 in that span. As a result, many will look to this series as a potential upset, given those stats as well as the save percentage of goalies Antoine Keller and Joshua Fleming in those four Nova Scotia games – .974 on 77 shots.

For the Sea Dogs, currently 16th overall and tied with Quebec at 47 points, the situation is straight forward. As long as the Remparts do not gain one more point in their home-and-home series with Rimouski than Saint John does this weekend in two games against Halifax, regardless of regulation or overtime or shootout status, the Dogs are in.

Saint John holds the tie breaker over Quebec with 18 regulation and overtime wins, to 14 for Quebec. Saint John hosts the Mooseheads Friday and Saturday and if they win both, they are in but as long as their two results equal or exceed Quebec’s results, they are in.

The reward is a date with Drummondville in Round 1. The Voltigeurs are 2-0 against Saint John (6-1, 9-2) and 3-1 against Quebec this year, with that Remparts win coming in the first half.

For the Wildcats, Wednesday’s victory clinched home-ice advantage in the first round and puts them in good position for the No. 3 seed in the East.

The only team that can catch the Cats is the Cape Breton Eagles, who would finish third with two regulation or overtime wins in Charlottetown Friday and Saturday and a pair of regulation losses by the Cats in their home and home with Acadie-Bathurst. If that happens, both the Cats and Eagles would have 81 points and the Cape would get the nod at No. 3 with 36 wins in regulation and overtime to 35 for the Cats.

Any other results that develop in those games mean the Cats are No. 3.

Who the Wildcats, who have 81 points, will play will likely come down to the final shifts on Saturday. Currently, Cape Breton has 77 points, Chicoutimi 76 and Rimouski 75 while Cape Breton owns 34 wins in regulation and overtime to 33 for Chicoutimi and Rimouski, the first tie-breaker. The next tie breaker is goals for-against and Cape Breton is plus 20, Chicoutimi plus 19 and Rimouski plus nine.

Head to head

The Wildcats are 4-4-0-1 against Cape Breton, 1-1 against both Chicoutimi and Rimouski this season. Moncton is 16-15-2-1 since Christmas, while Cape Breton is 20-10-0-2 in that span, Chicoutimi 18-9-2-1 and Rimouski 19-11-2-0.

Additionally, Acadie-Bathurst is 15-13-2-2 since the holiday break, Drummondville 25-5-2-0, Halifax 19-8-3-1 and Saint John 6-23-2-2.

Elite puck stoppers

Patrick Leaver, whose work in the crease down the stretch has played the No. 1 factor in keeping the Sea Dogs hopes alive, has stopped more shots than any other goalie this season with 1,373 saves.

His efforts against the Wildcats with 43 saves featured highlight-reel stop after highlight-reel stop in another first star effort. For the Dogs, it’s been that way for a while now and his presence has provided a chance.

No. 2 in the saves department is Moncton’s Jacob Steinman with 1,353 and now the owner of a 25-16-3 record entering the final weekend. He cooly made five saves in Wednesday’s shootout win.

Mirror image?

Interesting stat but in the year prior to the Wildcats most recent first-place run atop the league’s standings in 2019-20s, the team’s winning percentage in 2018-19 was .625, which had them tied for eighth place with 85 points (two points out of sixth). The next season, the Cats were 50-13-1-0 for 101 points before their season and playoff run was cut short because of the pandemic.

Currently, the Cats are 37-22-4-3 and if they sweep the home-and-home series with Acadie-Bathurst, they will post a .625 winning percentage for 85 points.

N.B. stats

As the season comes to an end, Sam Oliver of Saint John holds the lead among New Brunswickers with 69 points as part of a solid season with the Drummondville Voltigeurs. Spencer Gill of Riverview, a member of the Rimouski Oceanic, is the top N.B. defenceman in terms of points, with 41 points thus far.

Season series

Moncton went 8-1 against the Sea Dogs this season, a big part of their record this season, which has seen the team improve on its 74-point campaign a year ago. In fact, when Cats look back at their record this season, they’ll point to a combined slate against the West Division and Sea Dogs at an amazing 15-2.

Point spread

Not sure what Acadie-Bathurst head coach and general manager Gordie Dwyer expected when he acquired Colby Huggan for an eighth-round pick from the Armada last August but the Charlottetown native is flourishing in northern New Brunswick this year. A 2004 born winger, Huggan recorded 14 points combined in his first two seasons with Blainvile-Boisbriand (seven points each year). He enters the weekend with 61 points this year on the strength of 25 goals and 36 assists.

The point total is 54 more than a year ago, which represents the third highest jump from last year in the loop. The two players ahead of him are most valuable player candidate Antoine Verreault of Rouyn Noranda (plus 74 points from a year ago) and Jeremie Minville of Gatineau (plus 63).

Huggan’s performance makes him a strong candidate to return for his overage season next year.

Goodbyes are hard

It is a somewhat rare event when season-ending graduation ceremonies feature players on the opposition teams who made their biggest impact in the Q in the city hosting the ceremony. But that is the case for Peter Reynolds of Fredericton, a member of the Mooseheads, who ends the season in Saint John Friday and Saturday.

Reynolds makes his first trip back to Saint John this weekend since he was dealt to Halifax at the Christmas break after 3.5 seasons in Saint John, which featured two of the most famous empty net goals in franchise history to clinch the Memorial Cup championship two years ago.

Reynolds will skate into TD Station, where the Dogs now feature 20-year-olds Patrick Leaver, Drew Elliott and Brody Fournier who will skate in their final regular-season contests. Fournier, along with a No. 1 pick in 2025, was part of that holiday trade for Reynolds, who interestingly enough still leads the Sea Dogs scoring race with 44 points in a Saint John uniform this year, two more than Eriks Mateiko.

Games times are 7 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Blueline balance

With the depth of the Wildcats showing on its league best power-play unit, it is manifesting itself with a more even-keeled approach in the stats department on the blueline.

Last year for example, Etienne Morin recorded 72 points for the Cats but the next highest total for a Moncton D-Man was 19 points. In fact, Morin’s totals were more than the next four teammates combined.

Different story this year. While’s Morin’s offence is down to 47 points, he still ranks seventh overall among defencemen. But Olivier Boutin is next on the team with 36 points, Natan Grenier at 34 points, Adam Fortier Gendron at 28 points and Oscar Plandowski at 23 points. Part of that applies to wide-spread production on the power play, where the blueliners have combined 54 points compared to 48 a year ago.

Of those 48, Morin had 70.8 per cent of the total, compared to this year, where any blueliner except for Morin has produced 30 power-play points – or 55.6 per cent, a jump from 14 in that department in 2022-23. Morin still leads the way with 24 power-play points this year on a unit that is clicking at a league high 28.5 per cent.