CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – A game in the first week of October helped turn the Charlottetown Islanders season around.
The Islanders were 1-5-0-0 when they hosted the then Quebec Major Junior Hockey League-leading Quebec Remparts on Oct. 7.
The Islanders fell behind 4-1 and 5-2 before losing 6-5 in overtime.
“That was the night it felt like we were finally starting to come out of the doldrums at the start of the season,” head coach Jim Hulton recalled on Friday. “It was a breakthrough moment and a takeoff point for the team.”
Benjamin Gagne tipped a Derek Gentile pass on an odd-man rush for the winner. Now Gentile is a part of the Islanders, which shows the difference a few months can have on a team’s roster.
The overtime loss came a night after the Islanders lost 4-0 on home ice to the Saint John Sea Dogs and the coaching staff challenged the club.
“They responded with flying colours,” Hulton said after the Remparts game. “In particular, it would have been easy to fold the tent at 4-1, but they didn’t, they came back. Those are all stepping stones towards future success.”
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It was also the final game of overage forward Pascal Aquin’s eight-game suspension he received in the pre-season.
The Islanders went to Cape Breton and lost 4-2 on Oct. 11, but then beat Acadie-Bathurst in back-to-back games on Oct. 13 and 14 as they won nine of their next 10 games.
Goalie Matthew Welsh said he knew the squad would turn it around and be a successful hard-working team.
“We were in every game . . . It felt like the puck wasn't bouncing our way,” Welsh said. “It was definitely great for our group to prove a lot of people wrong this year.”
The teams meet Saturday afternoon in Game 1 of their playoff series.
