It had been three years since the Laval Rocket last entered the Conference Finals in the Calder Cup Playoffs. They fell in seven games to the Springfield Thunderbirds then, and there were a handful of veterans from that team guiding the current iteration of the Rocket. Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Brandon Gignac, Lucas Condotta, and Cayden Primeau all played big roles in that playoff run, while Laurent Dauphin was also a solid regular-season contributor.
Standing in front of the Rocket were the Charlotte Checkers fresh off handling the Hershey Bears last round in a three-game sweep. Charlotte put together a strong regular season as well, finishing with 94 points, just behind Hershey for the division title. The Rocket were going to enter Game 1 short-handed once again as both Tyler Wotherspoon and William Trudeau were listed as week-to-week, meaning the clinching lineup from Game 5 against Rochester remained the same.
Cayden Primeau was given the start despite the practice routine suggesting and the media reporting that Jacob Fowler would take the net. Opposite of Primeau was Kaapo Kahkonen for the Checkers, who had compiled a 6-2-0 record for Charlotte in the playoffs.
While the Rocket got the first few looks on net, it was their opponents who got on the board first thanks to a mistake behind Primeau’s net. Adam Engström got his timing mixed up with Florian Xhekaj, resulting in Ben Steeves stealing the puck away uncontested. Steeves teed it up for Sandis Vilmanis who was all alone in front of Primeau, and the Checkers forward buried it to open the scoring.
It was clear that the officials were content to let both sides play as obvious infractions went uncalled, allowing Charlotte to clog up Rocket attacks and push the attack in the other direction. While Laval controlled the shots, Justin Sourdif soon doubled the Charlotte lead as he broke in off the wing and beat Cayden Primeau over his blocker to make it 2-0.
Back-to-back power plays did little to improve the Rocket’s attempt to claw back into the game, and on their second man advantage they gave up more scoring chances than they managed to generate with the extra man. It was the first time in the playoffs that the Rocket looked frustrated and out of answers after just one period, leaving them with a hole to dig out of in the final 40 minutes.
That two-goal deficit quickly turned into three less than two minutes into the second period as the Checkers continues to take advantage of any gap the Rocket gave them. Steeves again sent Vilmanis into the offensive zone, with Vilmanis pulling up and throwing a perfect feed on net for his teammate. Oliver Okuliar was on the spot, redirecting it by Primeau to put the Rocket in a massive hole.
Laval answered the third Charlotte goal with one of their own, finally turning their time on attack into a tangible result. Joshua Roy rang a shot off the crossbar first, then went back to work to win the puck back to Sean Farrell. Farrell returned it to Roy who spun and put it on the tape of Oliver Kapanen, who beat Kaapo Kahkonen to give some life back to the Laval offence.
While the Rocket were still pushing to cut further into the Charlotte lead, a Jared Davidson high-sticking call put the Rocket on their first penalty kill of the night. Laval’s penalty-killers were locked in from the jump, smothering the Charlotte attack and allowing Davidson to escape the box entirely unscathed.
As the period wound down it was still the Rocket pushing the Checkers back at every turn, flipping the momentum of the game entirely heading into the final minutes. Kyle Criscuolo gave them a helping hand, ripping off Lucas Condotta’s helmet to give the Rocket a late power play. For the first time all night, it looked dangerous, but wasn’t able to sneak a puck by Kahkonen before the period ended.
The top power-play unit came out of the intermission woefully unprepared, and Charlotte took total advantage as John Leonard converted a short-handed goal to put the Rocket down by three goals again.
Laval wasn’t able to cut into the lead, but a strong effort by Kapanen sent the Rocket right back to the power play. The second unit started the power play, with Engström barrelling down the ice and helping create multiple looks in front of net for his teammates, but Kahkonen was sharp to keep them at bay. With the first unit jumping on the ice, the Checkers began to press them hard and Laval again saw another chance to claw back into the game slip away as Charlotte killed off the remainder of their power play.
The Rocket continued to try to chip away at the Checkers’ lead, but the final finishing touch continued to elude them. First was Roy having a wide-open chance from the slot knocked away at the last second, then Alex Barré-Boulet, with a yawning cage, fired it right into the skate of Kahkonen. Even another power play couldn’t carve out another goal as a frustrating special-teams night loomed large with under 10 minutes left to play.
Tempers continued to simmer and slowly boil over, with Xavier Simoneau drawing an unsportsmanlike call after getting sticked in the face, then butt-ended by Trevor Carrick, which was ignored by an official looking right at the play.
With time running short, the Rocket eventually pulled Primeau for a last-gasp attempt at a comeback in Game 1. Jesse Puljujarvi quickly put that on ice as he buried a fifth goal into the empty net and sent fans to an early exit.
The game did not end quietly or in an orderly fashion as the Rocket decided to spend the final minutes of the contest extracting their pound of flesh, much like Game 4 against Rochester. Condotta, Simoneau and Harvey-Pinard all earned roughing penalties and misconducts, along with David Reinbacher and Noel Hoefenmayer. While killing off the penalty, Xhekaj would join them as he continued to jaw at Steeves, and then Laurent Dauphin took a chance to join them and slashed Will Lockwood on his way to the bench.
It was a messy end to the opening contest, and set the table for what was sure to be a feisty Game 2 on Thursday night.
Final Score: Charlotte 5, Laval 1
CLT leads best-of-seven series 1-0
Game 2 is set for 7 PM ET at Place Bell on Thursday night. It is unclear now if there will be many lineup changes, but it is likely that Jacob Fowler will get the nod in net as the Rocket continue their rotation of goalies.
