Moose stumble in final home game

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This article was published 07/04/2019 (2434 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Moose have been nearly unbeatable at home since Christmas.

Which made Sunday’s final regular-season home date at Bell MTS Place — a dismal 6-2 loss to the Stockton Heat in the midst of a frantic American Hockey League playoff race — hard to figure.

But Moose head coach Pascal Vincent was more than willing to cut his team some slack.

“These are the facts,” Vincent said.

“We’ve played seven games in 12 days (and) three sets of back-to-backs. One of those games was going to happen at some point. We’ve been pushing and grinding our points and one-goal games and then we just came back (off) the road, we played a back-to-back against Bakersfield (Tuesday and Wednesday).

“Two big games for us and dealing with some bruises and stuff like that. Some key guys out of the lineup. We’ve pushed those guys. They’ve pushed themselves quite a bit.”

Manitoba, outscored 5-1 in the middle frame, fell to 37-29-5-2 overall but remained tied at 81 points with the Iowa Wild for the fourth and final playoff position in the AHL’s Central Division.

It was only the third regulation loss at home since Christmas for the Moose, who have posted 19 of a franchise-record 25 home wins following the break.

The fifth-place Texas Stars, meanwhile, are one point back of the Moose and Iowa with three regular-season games remaining. Third-place Milwaukee sits two points clear of Manitoba and Iowa.

This week, the Moose head out on the road for the final time in the regular season this week with games Friday and Saturday in Grand Rapids and Sunday against Central-leading Chicago.

John McCarron, Tyler Graovac and Corey Schueneman scored in a span of 3:21 early in the second period to give the visitors a 4-1 lead.

Ryan Lomberg, with two, and Rinat Valiev also scored for the Heat, a non-playoff team that is sixth in the Pacific Division at 30-29-4-2.

Pacific teams play eight fewer regular-season games and have a reduced travel schedule compared to the rest of the league.

“Overall, this game doesn’t represent the game we’ve been playing for such a long time…” Vincent said.

“I don’t think we had good legs, I don’t think we were moving the puck right, but we were in a position we couldn’t succeed today. Part of it is we were a team that hadn’t played since Sunday before the back-to-back. They were still fresh, we were not.”

Peter Stoykewych and Seth Griffith scored for Manitoba, which was without injured regulars Tucker Poolman, JC Lipon and Skyler McKenzie. The Moose have come from last overall in the AHL at the break before going 26-13-3-2 and are now on the brink of claiming a playoff berth.

“Obviously we want to win every game and we had every intention of winning today,” said Stoykewych, Manitoba’s captain.

“I’m really proud of the guys, what we’ve done in the last couple of months. We’re still in a position to determine our own fate here. Obviously not what we wanted there in the second period.

“We came unhinged there. You see how close the league is, how good other teams are. Tip your hat to them, they put their pedal to the metal and brought it to us.”

Tyler Parsons made 36 stops in the Heat net. Moose starter Mikhail Berdin and Ken Appleby combined for 28 saves.

Stoykewych doesn’t expect an easy ride from Chicago and Grand Rapids, the top two teams in the division.

“We definitely can’t have that mindset,” Stoykewych said.

“Don’t know (what will happen). It’s kind of the nature of the beast in this league; guys go up, guys go down all the time.

“We’ll have to see how their NHL teams treat their players there. We’ll deal with the lineup… going into those games but we’re in a position where we need to win and we need to win now.”

NOTEWORTHY: The Moose announced their regular-season awards prior to Sunday’s game. Those honoured included goaltender Eric Comrie (MVP, three stars award), captain Peter Stoykewych (community service), Tucker Poolman (top defenceman) and blue-liner Logan Stanley (top rookie)… Poolman and rookie left-winger Skyler McKenzie, both nursing lower-body injuries and right-winger JC Lipon (upper body) are considered week to week and will not be in the Manitoba lineup this week.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14