Eagles rout Mooseheads again

This year's Battle of Nova Scotia is starting to feel quite one-sided.
The Halifax Mooseheads were competitive with the Cape Breton Eagles in their first meeting of the season but the same cannot be said of the two games that followed. The Eagles pumped the Mooseheads 8-2 in Halifax on Oct. 19 and then dismantled them 7-1 at the Scotiabank Centre on Tuesday. Cape Breton now leads the season series 3-0.
"We didn't play well and we didn't do the little things right and it cost us," said Halifax winger Raphael Lavoie. "For sure it's frustrating. We never want to lose like that in front of our fans twice in a row. We're going to practise hard and try to sort things out and hopefully become better."
This latest game was close for about half a period. The Eagles blew it open when they scored four times in the final 10 minutes of the first, including three goals in less than two minutes right before the intermission. By that point they had outshot the Mooseheads 23-8 and the 4-0 lead had taken most of the life out of the home team and the building.
"Hockey's a game of momentum and I think we've got to do a better job on the bench of staying positive, especially when stuff's not going our way," said Halifax defenceman Patty Kyte. "When they got those three quick ones I think we kind of died a little bit. We're a young team and, moving forward, we'll learn from this and just keeps practising hard and we'll get better every day."
The biggest difference in the teams was the way the Eagles' attack had the Mooseheads on their heels for so much of the night. They came in waves on odd-man rushes, generating what felt like an endless amount of high-quality scoring chances.
"They're a fast, puck-moving team and they transition really quickly in the neutral zone," Kyte said. "They've got good, mobile D and we just weren't quick enough tonight. We weren't on top of them and we'll learn from it. We just couldn't handle them."
Ryan Francis finished with two goals and two assists for the Eagles, Shaun Miller scored twice and Shawn Boudrias, Derek Gentile and Brooklyn Kalmikov had one each. Lavoie scored the Mooseheads goal. 
Kevin Mandolese stopped 23 shots for Cape Breton and Alexis Gravel made 39 saves for Halifax. After facing 46 shots, including 27 classified as 'dangerous' by the QMJHL statisticians, it certainly wouldn't be fair to say Gravel was the reason the Mooseheads lost. By comparison, the league site only credited Halifax with three dangerous shots.
"Give credit to them, they're a good team," Kyte said. "They're good offensively and I thought Gravy kept us in it in the first period but we just couldn't (handle) their pressure. It's a tough one overall."
The result makes the Mooseheads 7-8-1-0 and the Eagles move to 12-4-0-0. The two points move Cape Breton into a tie for second place overall.
"We've got a lot of teaching to do, for everyone on the team," Lavoie said. "We'll work on it in practice and doing video at home.
"You've got to remember the mistakes you made and we've got to figure out what went wrong and what we need to improve."
The Mooseheads' next game is on the road on Friday against the Bathurst Titan. The Titan (0-10-2-3) are still looking for their first win of the season.
"We're on a five-game losing streak and we don't want to take Bathurst lightly, even though they haven't won a game yet," Kyte said. "We're just looking to get back on track on Friday night and then come back Saturday and beat Saint John and go from there."
Notes: Jared McIsaac (shoulder), Cole Foston (knee), Cameron Whynot (World Under-17 Challenge), Cole Stewart (healthy scratch) and Brendan Tomilson (undisclosed injury) did not play for Halifax. Mooseheads assistant coach Sylvain Favreau and goalie coach Joey Perricone are also at the World Under-17 Challenge.