Win puts Moose in first place
By WILLY PALOV Sports Reporter
Wed. Feb 27 - 6:51 AM
The Chronicle Herald
www.thechronicleherald.ca

The Halifax Mooseheads completed the first half of their mission to the U.S. on Tuesday, beating the Lewiston Maineiacs 3-1 in the first of back-to-back games in Maine.

The Mooseheads got a goal and an assist from Jakub Voracek and 37 saves from Mark Yetman in the solid win. The teams play again tonight in Lewiston.

"It was a good game for us," said Mooseheads head coach Cam Russell. "They got 38 shots and they had eight power plays, but I thought we played pretty solid defensively. And Mark was good, he made some big saves."

Guillaume Monast and Yuri Cheremetiev also scored for the Mooseheads, who have now won five of their last six games. The win also moves them into sole possession of first place in the East Division, one point ahead of the Saint John Sea Dogs.

"We’ve been looking at them the last five or six games and we’ve wanted to get back to where we feel we should be and that’s first place in the conference," Russell said. "But more importantly, we just want to make sure we’re playing good hockey coming into the most important time of the year. With the games we have left, we want to make sure we’re peaking at the right time of the year.

"Obviously we’ve had some inconsistency this month, but January was a great month for us. There’s no need to panic. We knew we’re a good hockey team and we could pull ourselves out of it. The players have done a good job over the last six games to do that."

Yetman picked up his second straight win after going 15 games without a start. He only lost the shutout with four minutes remaining in the third period when Stefan Chaput scored on a shorthanded breakaway. Russell said there is a strong possibility he will give him a third consecutive start tonight.

"That’s what we’ll talk about tonight," Russell said. "He’s playing well and he’s obviously earned the right to continue playing. He hasn’t played a lot of hockey lately so it will depend on how he’s feeling tomorrow. But if he feels like he can play two in two nights, I’d love to go right back with him."

The Mooseheads had a scare in the first period when defenceman Andrew Bodnarchuk suffered a bad cut on the back of his hand. He was slashed by a teammate’s skate while he was on the bench and needed immediate medical attention to stop the heavy bleeding.

"He lost a ton of blood," Russell said. "But he was stitched up and he missed most of the first period and then came back and played the rest of the game. When I first saw it I thought he was gone for the rest of the year. But there were no tendons cut so we were fortunate."

Notes — Voracek’s two points put him back into a tie for the league scoring lead with Mathieu Perreault of the Bathurst Titan. Both players now have 93 points. … Not playing for the Mooseheads were P.J. Corsi (shoulder), Stephen Lund (post-concussion syndrome), Travis Randell (flu) and Richard Greer (healthy scratch). Daniel Smith (thumb) played his first game since Dec. 16.

( wpalov@herald.ca)

Copyright The Chronicle Herald 2008