Etienne Morin and the Moncton Wildcats have advanced to the Friday’s Memorial Cup semi-final

But Rimouski kept pressing and eventually broke through, with Mael St-Denis beating Moncton’s Mathis Rousseau to tie the game at 1-1.

A little while later, Mathieu Cataford took advantage of some scrambly Moncton defence and deflected a Olivier Theberge point shot past Rousseau to give Rimouski a 2-1 lead after one period. (Cataford was Flames prospect Etienne Morin’s check, we believe…, but Morin’s attention was divided due to a couple breakdowns by his team.)

Early in the second period, though, the Wildcats tied things up. Pekarcik deflected a Dylan MacKinnon point shot past Langevin to make it 2-2 just 1:27 into the second frame.

A few minutes later, Moncton retook the lead. Rimouski tried to clear the zone up the middle, but Preston Lounsbury intercepted the puck. He fired a shot on net, leading to a scramble in front of Langevin that ended with Gabe Smith jamming in a loose puck to give the Wildcats a 3-2 advantage.

The Oceanic pushed to try to tie things up in the third period, but Moncton played a pretty structured defensive game. Morin got a measure of revenge for his earlier lapse, as he fired a wrister from the point that beat Langevin early in the third period to give Moncton a 4-2 lead.

Smith and Alex Mercier added empty-bet goals to cement a 6-2 Moncton victory.

How’d Morin do?

As always, we saw a ton of Flames prospect Etienne Morin in this game. He played primarily with Dylan MacKinnon on Moncton’s top pairing and saw a steady dose of Rimouski’s top guys. Morin was credited with three shots, the fourth Moncton goal, his second of the tournament, and was plus-2 overall.

Up next

The Memorial Cup tournament continues on Friday as Moncton (1-2) face the London Knights (2-1) in the semi-final game. London beat Moncton by a 3-2 score in overtime during the round robin.

The winner of the semi-final faces Andrew Basha and the Medicine Hat Tigers in Sunday’s championship final.