HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – Jonathan Bernier might have been nervous in Game 1 last Friday, but he was far from that in Tuesday’s night game.
His statistics through three games are the best raw stats in the league, with a 1.67 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage.
“We are confident with Joe (Bernier) back there,” said Maineiacs captain Marc-Andre Cliche. “We have to do our job all the time, too, but he is always there for us.”
Likewise, Bernier credited much of his success to his teammates’ ability to keep the Mooseheads’ shots to the outside. A shot chart by goaltending coach Marc Champagne showed the majority of Halifax’s shots came from above the faceoff circles and outside the slot. Since giving up four goals on 33 shots in Game 1, Bernier has stopped all but one of the 64 shots he has seen.
Downtime recreation
With extra days off between games, the Maineiacs’ coaching staff wanted to make sure the players did something productive – and stay out of trouble at the same time.
What better way, they decided, than to do something inherently Canadian: Curling.
Jodoin led the team to a rink in nearby Sackville where, for two hours, the players played a game on the ice without skates. The team divided into groups of four, coaches included, and played about six ends each in two hours. None of the team members fell, but radio broadcaster Jeff Mannix and assistant coach Ed Harding managed to find a quick seat on the ice on one occasion.
The team followed that excursion up with a walk along the harbor in downtown Halifax and a meal at a local steakhouse, The Keg.
On the team’s first full day in Halifax, the staff took the players to Peggy’s Cove, one of the sites of the recovery effort when a passenger jet carrying 229 passengers and crew members crashed off the Nova Scotian coast in September of 1998.
The team toured the remote fishing town and its lighthouse, and then walked to the memorial for crash victims.
Close call
Stefan Chaput’s knee took another hit and lost some time on the ice again.
In a game against Victoriaville earlier in the season, Chaput took a tumble after a hit to his knee and stayed down. He went back to the locker room then and missed three to four shifts before rejoining his team on the bench.
In Game 3, Chaput took a low hip from Frederik Cabana to the same knee. Both players went flying, and Chaput again stayed down on the ice, in obvious pain. The speedy forward missed the rest of the first period and half of the second, but resurfaced and played out the game. He walked well on the leg after the game, practiced hard Wednesday, and is expected to play tonight in Game 4.
Getting better
Derek Bailey continues to make strides in his recovery process. The Maineiacs forward, who has played in just 39 games this season with four goals and 10 points, hasn’t played since Feb. 7 against Moncton.
After skating for the first time in a month at Saturday’s morning skate, Bailey has participated in every practice on the road, and has started to skate harder, dig deeper on his stops and shoot better off his front foot.
Finally, power
To say the Maineiacs’ power play had been abysmal after two games in their playoff series might have been generous, but the team finally got things working, despite having less room with which to work.
The Maineiacs got two power-play goals to go with a short-handed tally in Game 3, a 4-1 Lewiston victory, and the confidence seemed to be back among the power-play unit.
“We know we can score now and we will continue to score on the power play now,” said forward Mathieu Aubin.
Best killers
Lewiston apparently likes penalty-killing at the Halifax Forum. After killing off six Mooseheads power plays over the first two games in Lewiston, the Maineiacs allowed 10-man advantages in Game 3, but still did not allow Halifax to score. The Mooseheads are now 0-for-22 through three games, thanks in part to the efforts of 17-year-old netminder Jonathan Bernier and the timely shot-blocking by the penalty-kill unit.
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