GATINEAU, Que. - Call them the Comeback Kids.

The Moncton Wildcats rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the third period and defeated the Gatineau Olympiques 4-3 in a shootout in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action last night in front of 2,581 fans at the Centre Robert Guertin.

Moncton won all three games on this road trip and outscored opponents 12-5 in the process. It beat the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies 5-1 on Thursday and the Val d'Or Foreurs 3-1 on Friday.

'That's a tough trip at the best of times,' said Wildcats head coach Danny Flynn. 'I'm really proud of the guys. It's a big accomplishment to sweep a three-game, four-day road trip. It was made even more challenging with the circumstances we had to overcome.

'We we were missing our top centre and leading scorer in Alex Saulnier. He has concussion-like symptoms after taking a hit to the head early in the second game of the trip. We took him out of the lineup to rest him and we'll have him re-examined back in Moncton.

'We're arguably the youngest team in the league and we were also missing some other guys on this trip. We had five goals against in three games. Those are great numbers even for a veteran team. We received a great effort from everybody on this trip and a lot of young guys stepped up big.' Moncton, 26-24-3-2, is fourth in the Maritime Division and 10th overall in the 17-team league.

The Wildcats will play their next four games at the Moncton Coliseum. This homestand will begin with matchups against the Acadie-Bathurst Titan on Friday and the Quebec Remparts on Saturday, both 7 p.m. starts.

Rookie centre Erik Robichaud scored the winner for Moncton in the fourth round of the shootout.

He beat Gatineau goaltender Francois Lacerte with a close-range shot that deflected off the crossbar and into the net.

Allain Saulnier, Patrick Delisle-Houde and Scott Trask scored in regulation time for Moncton, which held a 34-26 shots edge. The club extended its winning streak to three games and improved to 11-16-0-2 on the road.

Robert Pelletier, Mathieu Boily and Emile Poirier countered for Gatineau, which is tied for second in the West Division and tied for 12th overall in the league at 22-24-4-5. Garrett Clarke had three assists.

On the power play, Moncton was 0-for-3 and Gatineau was 1-for-3.

The Wildcats swept the three-game season series between these clubs.

Moncton held a shots edge of 10-8 in the first period and 8-7 in the second period, but it trailed 2-0 after 40 minutes. Gatineau got on the scoreboard on the power play at 9:04 of the first period and jumped ahead 2-0 at 12:26 of the second period. 

Moncton owned a 12-9 shots edge in the third period and began its comeback on Allain Saulnier's unassisted goal at 8:42. He showed lots of patience, out waited the goaltender and scored off a scrambly play to cut the club's deficit to 2-1. 

The Wildcats created a 2-2 tie on Houde's goal at 13:09 and Trask gave them a 3-2 lead at 17:46. Both goals came on rebounds in goalmouth traffic. Trask also had an assist and was the club's only multi-point player. 

The Olympiques made it 3-3 on Poirier's goal at 19:24 with their goaltender pulled for an extra attacker. The Wildcats held a 4-2 shots edge in overtime, setting the stage for the shootout. 

The Wildcats, who were without forwards Brandon Shea and Brett Malone yesterday, have earned points in 12 of the past 17 games with a 9-5-1-2 run. Shea returned to Moncton yesterday after going home for one week for personal reasons and Malone has a hip injury. 

'Patrick Delisle-Houde's grandmother died on Saturday and he had the flu,' said Flynn. 'We gave him the option of sitting out this game, but he wanted to play. He vomited a couple of times during the game. 

'He still had a tremendous game with five blocked shots and he scored the goal to pull us into a 2-2 tie. We gave him the game puck.' Moncton is the lowest scoring team in the QMJHL, but it overcame a 2-0 deficit with three goals in the third period yesterday and won in a shootout. 

'I thought we were playing well, but we had trouble converting scoring chances in the first two periods,' said Flynn. 'We put on a push in the third period and pinched our defencemen to try to make things happen offensively. We showed lots of grit and will power. 

'(Athletic therapist) Graham Black does a great job with our office conditioning program. We think that's an advantage for us. This was our third game in four nights, we were playing with a short bench and we battled from behind in the third period. We still had lots of energy.' Flynn was smiling about the fact Moncton scored 12 goals in three games. 

'Sometimes we're guilty of trying to paint portraits when we should be trying to paint barns,' he said. 'I think sometimes we're trying to score on pretty tic-tac-toe plays. We showed good habits on this trip so hopefully we can build off that. 

'We scored goals on this trip that were the result of getting pucks to the net, driving the net hard and going after rebounds. We went to the hard to play in areas in front of the net and it paid off.' Devon MacAusland moved into a tie with Simon Laliberte for second in career regular season games played for the Wildcats with 272. 

Sebastien Roger owns the franchise record with 274.