Moose making best of lengthy series of road games

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This article was published 09/12/2019 (2218 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Moose were home this past weekend, but there was no point in unpacking their bags.

After a seven-game road trip where the team went 3-4, the Moose split a pair of games at Bell MTS Place against the Chicago Wolves.

But there isn’t much time to enjoy home cooking. The Moose are heading back to the airport today, as their next five games are in enemy territory. The first game of the trip is Wednesday against the Texas Stars.

“You know what? We don’t usually use things that we don’t control as an excuse. And it’s not an excuse. But it’s a tough sequence in the season,” Moose head coach Pascal Vincent said after Monday’s practice at Bell MTS Iceplex.

“I’ve been with the Moose for a few years now, and I don’t recall having that kind of schedule. So, we’ve been on the road for 17 days, played seven games, and then we came back for two and going back for five in 10 days. So, that’s 27 days on the road in a month and a half.”

The Moose have played 14 games as visitors this season. Only the Wolves (16) and Providence Bruins (15) have played more games away from their own rink. While life on the road presents its share of challenges, Vincent said it’s not necessarily all negative.

“There’s always a positive side, which is we spend a lot of time together. We get to talk to our players. They get to spend a lot of time together. And then from there, doing that early before Christmas, we’re going to have some sequences (in the second half of the season) where we’re going to be home for some time, and we feel quite comfortable as we’ve had some success in our building. But we need to get through this,” Vincent said.

The Moose are a difficult group to assess after 26 games. They had a brutal start to the season, going 1-7-0-0 in the opening month. But in November, the Moose flipped a switch and went on a seven-game winning streak. They haven’t been as streaky lately, going 5-5 in their last 10 games to get to 13-13 on the season and only one point out of a playoff spot

“It’s been tough to kind of string games together here,” said defenceman Cameron Schilling, who had two assists on Saturday. “We had a little stretch there where we won seven in a row and that was just to get back to .500. Now that we’re at .500, we’ve got to bring that back, but it’s hard. It’s a tough league. We’ve got good teams in our division and we see them a lot, so they know different ways to beat you by seeing you so much. I think it’s just a matter of trying to find a way to win those close games.”

Considering the team’s dreadful start and how they’ve been stocking up on frequent flyer miles, perhaps their record is more impressive than it looks.

“I think we never want to set the bar at mediocre at 13-13, but I think if you give the circumstances for our road games and then, obviously, the way we started, I think it’s a good accomplishment that we’re at .500 at this point in the season and, hopefully, we can kind of build on it from now,” said the 31-year-old Schilling, who saw action in four games with the Winnipeg Jets last year.

The Moose had a league-worst 24 points by last year’s Christmas break, but they’ve already eclipsed that total as they sit at 26 points. Last year’s club dug themselves a huge hole and, despite an epic second half where they went 28-14-3-2, they missed the playoffs by two points.

This season, Vincent doesn’t want his group to have an uphill climb after Christmas, which makes this road trip so crucial. The Moose are currently 6-8 on visitor’s ice and don’t play in Winnipeg again until they meet the San Antonio Rampage on Dec. 21.

“We want to stay in the fight. That’s our goal,” Vincent said.

“When you play against teams in your own division, you want to win those two points clean and not go into overtime. We’ve seen it. We’ve been winning a lot of games after game No. 8, and it’s tough to get back up in the standings. You don’t have too much room for error. You have to win some games on the road.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31