First year captain Cameron Critchlow, acquired in the dispersal draft of Lewiston Maineaics players after that team folded, had a four goal game, accounting for all of the Mooseheads regulation tallies. 16-year-old rookie, Jonathan Drouin, followed up a tremendous 2 goal 2-assist effort on Monday night with the overtime winner in Tuesday’s Game 7.
The series with the now defeated Quebec Remparts was the best hockey this city has seen in a long time. And Mooseheads fans needed it. Let’s face it, the Mooseheads haven’t been a particularly good team and low attendance numbers suggested fans were taking a line from Classified’s “Maritimes” song to heart; “Home of the Mooseheads, but I don’t really go there.”
It was a legendary comeback from one of the best collections of young talent the Mooseheads have ever assembled. Fans naturally had high expectations from a team featuring Cole Harbour’s current wunderkind rookie, Nathan MacKinnon. Unfortunately past playoff iterations of the Mooseheads have found ways to hurriedly doff fans’ somewhat grandiose expectations. No one needs to be reminded of the dream combination of Brad Marchand and Jakub Voracek that seemed monstrous on paper, but was swept away by eventual league champion, Gatineau in the Q semifinals in 2007-08.
This incarnation of the team seems much different than its predecessors. They have exceeded all expectations. It is improbable for a team to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best of seven playoff series. It’s impossible to state just how inspiring it is for fans to see their team accomplish that feat.
We’re not going to see another team like this for a long time.
