Ryan Taplin/Metro File

Linden Bahm was one of five players not on the Mooseheads' top line to score goals on Friday night.

The Halifax Mooseheads have the Val-d’Or Foreurs’ number this season and it’s a good thing -- they don’t have anybody else’s.

The last-place Mooseheads earned just their second victory in 21 tries on Friday night at the Metro Centre, easily cruising past the Foreurs 6-1 to the delight of an appreciative crowd of 4,530.

The Mooseheads’ only other victory this season also came against the Foreurs, another 6-1 thumping in Quebec on Oct. 3. It snapped a franchise-record 12-game losing streak and marked the Herd’s first victory at the Metro Centre since the 2008-09 finale on March 15.

The Mooseheads got a pile of offence from players that don’t usually provide it. Sawyer Hannay, Pascal Amyot and Matthew Stoddard netted their first goals of the season, while role players Gabriel Desjardins and Linden Bahm also found the net. The sensational goaltending of Mathieu Corbeil, meanwhile, was the foundation of the win.

The dressing room was alive with hooting and hollering afterward.

“This was long-awaited,” Stoddard. “We seem to do well against them. As (head coach) Cam (Russell) said, it’s too bad they aren’t in our division. We did a lot of good things, especially after we got a lead ... We didn’t hold off. We kept coming at them doing the little things right.”

Hannay, a rugged blueliner not known for his foot-speed, got the ball rolling at 17:03 of the first period on a breakaway. He stepped out of the penalty box and took a feed from Carl Gelinas, then slid a low shot past Raffael D’Orso while being hauled down from behind.

Amyot scored on a one-timer on a power-play at 15:03 of the second and Tomas Knotek made it 3-0 just more than two minutes later when he fired a bullet past D’Orso’s blocker on a breakaway.

Stoddard scored before the second period was out and Desjardins and Bahm piled on in the third. The secondary offence was a welcome change for the Mooseheads, who had the worst goal-scoring output in the league entering the night. Only the top line of Knotek, Gerrad Grant and Travis Randell has been getting it done over the past month or so.

“It was nice to see some different guys get some goals other than Tomas and Travis,” Stoddard said. “Some secondary scoring was definitely needed and proved to be pretty helpful tonight I guess.”

Corbeil was the first star, turning aside 32 shots. Samuel Morneau, the Foreurs’ best player on this night with teammate and QMJHL scoring leader Jonathan Hazen out of the lineup with H1N1, was stymied by Corbeil on breakaways in the first and second periods.

He also turned aside a number of odd-man rushes and point-blank shots.

“He played great tonight,” Stoddard said. “He made a lot of great saves. I don’t know how many breakaways he faced but he made some pretty key stops and a few point-blank shots that should have gone in.”

The Mooseheads, 2-18-1, are scheduled to face the Prince Edward Island Rocket on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Metro Centre. The flu-ridden Rocket were planning to make the trip as of late Friday night, and the Mooseheads hope to get a victory and start their first winning streak of the season.

“We should build off the high,” Stoddard said.

Goalie Joel Grondin returned from the flu and emergency call-up Randy Chisholm was sent back to junior A. Scratches were Guillaume Pelletier (healthy), Alexandre Brunet (groin) and Jessyko Bernard (flu).

Now the Boston fans know what Moose fans had to put up with last year, lots of luck to them, I doubt he stays up with the big club

By ratcat0072

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By ratcat0072

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