CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The Charlottetown Islanders will get their first look of the season at one of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s top snipers.
The Islanders head to Moncton for a 7 p.m. contest with the Wildcats. The teams have split two games this season with Moncton, winning 3-2 in overtime on opening night while Charlottetown recorded a 5-3 victory on Sept. 29.
Summerside native Jeremy McKenna missed the first two meetings while playing professional hockey. The 20-year-old right-winger has 10 goals and eight assists for 18 points in 12 games since returning to junior. He had 45 goals and 97 points in 68 games a year ago.
“It’s another weapon in a multi-faceted attack,” Islanders head coach Jim Hulton said of McKenna. “We’re going to have to stay out of the box for one thing. They have a really dynamite power play and with Jeremy back there, and a few other guys, they have two high-end offensive lines. We’re going to have to be really aware of them.”
Moncton is one of the league’s hottest teams with a 9-1-0-0 record in their last 10 games, pushing their season record to 15-4-0-0 to sit atop the Eastern Conference. Charlottetown (12-6-3-0) is 5-5-0-0 in its last 10 outings as they deal with a slew of injuries to key players.
Nikita Alexandrov is out for tonight’s game with a lower-body injury sustained Saturday in Cape Breton. He remains week-to-week and will see a specialist later this week. Thomas Casey (upper body) and Keiran Gallant (chest) have both been cleared to play tonight while defenceman Anthony Hamel received a one-game suspension for starting a one-sided fight with Gatineau Olympiques forward Carson MacKinnon, a Summerside native, on Monday.
Charlottetown will dress five defencemen and 13 forwards for tonight’s game with Lukas Cormier out with a foot injury.
The Islanders had an optional practice on Tuesday and made some of the guys who have recently played heavy minutes stay off the ice. The rest was needed, Hulton said, for a squad that was taxed in Monday’s loss to Gatineau.
Despite missing Alexandrov and Cormier tonight, Hulton is looking to see how his charges compete.
“I want to see what we’re like without two key guys against a top team,” said Hulton, who also handles the general manager duties. “We have a few big tests here in the next couple of weeks that we’re probably not going to have either guy. If we can compete, then I think it just fuels the confidence here and maybe allows us to get aggressive with some moves at the deadline.”
The trade period runs from Dec. 15 to Jan. 6.
The Islanders head to Bathurst, N.B., to play the Acadie-Bathurst Titan Saturday at 7 p.m. before coming home to play the Wildcats Sunday at 3 p.m. Matthew Welsh is expected to start both Moncton games with rookie Jacob Goobie starting in Bathurst.
Hulton, assistant general manager Guy Girouard and Maritime head scout Trevor Birt are going to Moncton this morning to catch some of the Monctonian Challenge tournament, which attracts the top midget and bantam teams in the region. Girouard and Hulton will meet the team in Bathurst on Saturday. The Isles will also have most of its Maritimes scouts, plus two from Quebec, at the Monctonian.
“It gives us an idea of who the elite candidates are in the Maritimes, in particular, then we can get a little bit more specific from this point on in the season,” Hulton said.
