Halifax Mooseheads to open second round of playoffs tonight against another Maritime rival

After sweeping the Cape Breton Eagles in four straight games in the opening round of the QMJHL playoffs, the Halifax Mooseheads will be well rested when they play the Moncton Wildcats in game one of their second-round series on home ice tonight at Scotiabank Centre.

Not having played in eight days could leave the Mooseheads a little rusty, but not one player in their locker room is worried about that.

"We are really excited to get things going," said Jake Furlong, a defenceman from Upper Tantallon, N.S., who was drafted by the NHL's San Jose Sharks last year. "We've waited a little bit, but everybody is ready to go and we are prepared."

While Halifax swept Cape Breton, Moncton played a long and tough seven game series with Baie-Comeau. Maxim Barbashev was the game-seven hero for the Wildcats when he scored the overtime winner on home ice to push his team into the second round. Five of the seven games in the series went into overtime.

Halifax defenceman Dylan MacKinnon grew up in the Moncton, N.B., area and is looking forward to the series.

"It'll be pretty exciting for me as I'll have friends and family in attendance when we play there," said MacKinnon. "Playoff hockey is so much more intense than the regular season, so it will be a blast for me."

As they were in the first round, the Mooseheads are once again the clear favourite to win the series. They finished 33 points ahead of Moncton in the regular season and beat them six times in nine games.

The Mooseheads were the highest scoring team in the league during the regular season with three of their players, league scoring champion Jordan Dumais, Josh Lawrence and Alexandre Doucet, hitting the 50-goal mark. But it isn't just the Mooseheads top line the Wildcats will have to worry about, as eight players on Halifax scored at least 20 goals this season.

The Halifax offence has been sizzling, but good goaltending is mandatory for a team to go on a deep playoff run. That's one thing the Mooseheads don't need to worry about. Matthis Rousseau, an 18-year-old from suburban Montreal, was among the league leaders in every goaltending statistic in the regular season.

"A lot of people have described my game as calm," said Rousseau, who went undrafted last year but was invited to the Columbus Blue Jackets training camp in September.

"Some goalies are too calm and not ready to react. But I try to be calm, but also be very ready to react when I have to."

It'll be a busy weekend for Rousseau. The Saint Mary's University student will be writing an exam on Saturday morning between games on Friday night and Saturday night. 

While Rousseau has been rock solid between the pipes, his defencemen should get some credit. As a group they have been playing well, even though one of Halifax's top defencemen, Cam Whynot of Kentville, N.S., has been out of the lineup for a month after breaking a bone in his foot blocking a shot in a game on March 9. While he is getting closer to returning to action, Whynot is not expected to be in the Mooseheads lineup when the series begins.

"We're all really happy with what we've done so far but really it means nothing," said Furlong, who grew up playing in the TASA minor hockey system. "We know Moncton is going to come out and play hard and we just have to match it and be better."

With Whynot out of the lineup it's given other players a chance to step up. Brady Schultz, an 18-year-old defenceman from Connecticut, has filled Whynot's spot as the quarterback of the Mooseheads vaunted power-play unit.

With the chase for the President's Cup now whittled down from 16 teams to eight, the Mooseheads focus is simply on winning one series at a time.

"Everyone is super dialed in right now, I've never seen anything like it in the two years that I've been here," said MacKinnon. "We have a lot of guys who have really stepped up and we're ready to go again."

This week, the Mooseheads brought in a former Stanley Cup-winning coach to speak to the players. Claude Julien coached the Boston Bruins to a Stanley Cup title in 2011. He is a former NHL coach of the year and spent three seasons as the coach of the Montreal Canadiens. In 1997, he led the Gatineau Olympiques to a Memorial Cup title. The former defenceman played two seasons in Halifax with the American Hockey League's Halifax Citadels.

Games one and two in the series will be played tonight and Saturday night at Scotiabank Centre. Games three and four are in Moncton on Wednesday and Thursday.