CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – If it’s a track meet, the Charlottetown Islanders are in trouble.
“We can’t turn it into a high-stakes poker game where it’s trading rushes,” head coach Jim Hulton said on the eve of its second-round series with the Halifax Mooseheads. “We have to bottle it up and defend.”
The teams play Game 1 of their best-of-seven Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) quarter-final tonight. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Scotiabank Centre.
The Herd tied with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan for the third-most goals (270) during the regular season, only seven behind league-leading Drummondville. Charlottetown scored 209.
Islanders goalie Matthew Welsh said they are concentrating on how they play as opposed to adapting to the Mooseheads style.
“When we’re playing our game, we’re hard to beat no matter what,” he said.
The Mooseheads forwards are among the best in the league with the likes of NHL-signed Maxime Fortier and Tampa Bay prospect Otto Somppi, elite prospects for this year’s draft in Filip Zadina and Benoit Olivier Groulx and a six-foot-four Raphael Lavoie, who would be eligible for the draft, too, if he had been born 10 days earlier. Somppi missed much of the first-round series due to an undisclosed injury and was listed as day-to-day on Wednesday.
Their defence corps is mobile and has top prospect Jared McIsaac and guys like Jocktan Chainey, Jake Ryczek and rookie Justin Barron. It will mean the Islanders forecheck will have to be on.
“We have to get after their D before they get started,” Hulton said. “Once you give them time to get their toes up ice and get moving they’re going to back you off in a hurry, and that just leads right into their skill game.”
The series will also be a homecoming for Welsh, a Halifax native playing in his third season in the QMJHL.
“I’m excited to be playing in my hometown,” he said. “I’ve got family and friends who can come watch. It’s a great building to play in. They have really loud fans. I think we’re really excited for the challenge as a group.”