PHOTO COURTESY VICNENT ETHIER/CHL
Moncton Wildcats' forward Preston Lounsbury makes a pass around Rimouski Oceanic defenceman Basile Sansonnens, Wednesday in the final round robin game of the 105th Memorial Cup hosted in Rimouski, Que.
Medicine Hat News
RIMOUSKI, QUE
The Moncton Wildcats are off to the Memorial Cup semifinals.
The Wildcats beat the host Rimouski Oceanic 6-2 Wednesday night for their first win of the tournament, punching their ticket to the semifinals. They’ll face the London Knights with a spot in the Memorial Cup finals on the line. The Knights beat Moncton 3-2 in overtime on May 24.
Rimouski is the first host to go winless at the tournament since 2014 when the Knights failed to record a win as the host team.
Moncton opened the scoring Wednesday on their first opportunity of pressure.
Julius Sumpf got in behind the Rimouski defence and settled at the net front, knocked in a pass from Juraj Pekarcik in the corner to go ahead 1-0 at 7:39.
Rimouski rattled off a pair of goals in the second half of the first to lead after 20 minutes.
Maël St-Denis buried a rebound with a backhand shot to tie the game up at 13:27. Maxime Coursol fired the shot on net, Jack Martin had the second assist.
They grabbed the lead with 2:49 left in the period on a net-front redirection.
Mathieu Cataford skated towards the front of the Moncton net with his stick on the ice, setting a target for Rimouski blue liner Olivier Théberge. He fired a shot that banked off the 20 year old’s stick that found twine past an outstretch Mathis Rousseau for his first of the Memorial Cup. Dominic Pilote had the second assist as Rimouski carried the momentum into the locker room, outshooting Moncton 17-6 in the opening frame.
The Wildcats quickly took the momentum, scoring twice in the first five minutes of the middle frame to grab the lead.
Just 1:27 into the middle stanza, Pekarcik redirected a point shot from Dylan MacKinnon at 1:17 to tie the game up at 2-2. Alex Mercier had the second assist on Pekarcik’s first of the tournament.
Moncton struck again 2:38 later.
Preston Lounsbury fired a shot that missed overtop the Rimouski net, sending the puck bouncing back in front. There, Gabe Smith knocked in the ricochet to grab the Wildcats’ second lead of the night. His first of the tournament stood as the last goal in the frame, as Moncton’s 3-2 lead at 4:05 stood through 40 minutes.
Rimouski led the game in shots 26-17 through 40 minutes and started the third period with 1:26 of power play time.
The Oceanic failed to capitalize on the man advantage and the Wildcats made them pay.
After a missed net on a breakaway and a cross-bar denting blast from Moncton, the QMJHL champions struck with a point shot from Etienne Morin. The Calgary Flames prospect threaded a laser that found twine, putting Moncton up 4-2 4:02 into the third. Smith and Maxime Côté had the assists.
The Wildcats iced the win with a April of empty netters.
With 1:48 left in the game as Smith scored his second of the net, beating out a sprawled out defender to score on the empty net. They struck again, with 59 seconds left on the clock Mercier tucked his second of the contest on the open cage.
Rousseau made 32 saves in the Moncton win. Across the ice from him, Langevin made 26 saves.
Friday’s semifinals game gets underway at 5 p.m. MST with the winner taking on the Medicine Hat Tigers in the Memorial Cup finals on Sunday. That game also starts at 5 p.m. MST.
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