The grind never stops in the AHL as the Laval Rocket were once again back in action less than 24 hours after their 2-1 victory over the Providence Bruins on Friday night. Pascal Vincent was again forced into making some lineup changes as Jared Davidson suffered an injury on Friday night. Davidson was replaced by Laurent Dauphin, who was returning from injury.
Zack Hayes rotated in for Gustav Lindström to keep the defensive core fresh for a back-to-back game, while the rest of the lineup remained the same. Connor Hughes got the nod in net once again, with Luke Cavallin backing him up while Jakub Dobeš recovers from a lower-body injury.
Saturday’s contest kicked off a lot like Friday’s, with the Rocket dominating control of the puck in the opening minutes but being unable to get their shots through on net to Brandon Bussi.
Even as the Bruins had little to offer at even strength, a holding the stick penalty on Dauphin gave them the first power play of the game. Laval’s penalty-killers handled the man advantage with complete aplomb, dispatching the two-minute minor penalty without a single shot allowed.
There wasn’t much going in the way of action for either side as the first period wore on. Both teams were content to chip the puck in and try to create chances off of the limited possession that followed. In fact it was a relatively harmless shot from the Bruins that would open up the scoring in the contest. A faceoff was won back to Frederic Brunet, who put a low shot towards goal and Riley Tufte got a piece of it to fool Hughes.
A Rocket power play helped get the momentum back on the side of the home team as they peppered Bussi repeatedly, but couldn’t find their breakthrough on the man advantage. On the following shift however, things swung back in their favour with a tiny bit of luck. After Xavier Simoneau landed a devastating hit at the blue line, the fourth line was able to generate an odd-man rush in the other direction. Vincent Arseneau carried the puck deep, looked to centre a pass to his teammate, and ended up banking a shot off a Bruin skate and into the net to tie the game up.
His first goal of the year helped the Rocket take the momentum back as the first period came to a close with both sides having a goal to their name.
The second period saw the Rocket continue their dominance with the puck, even with the limited amount of shots for both teams. The chances were few and far between, with Sean Farrell’s pass into the slot for Owen Beck being the closest to a real scoring chance in the opening half of the period. Then, it was the third line of Farrell, Simoneau and Lucas Condotta going to work and keeping Providence hemmed in for a lengthy shift. The puck soon found Logan Mailloux at the point, and as he often does, Mailloux powered a wrist shot past Bussi to put Laval in the lead.
The lead was short-lived however as Tyler Pitlick found the inside angle on William Trudeau just over two minutes later and used that to sneak a goal in short-side on Hughes to tie the game back up at two goals apiece.
Then chaos broke out as Jeffrey Viel slashed Arseneau across the hands as he headed off the ice, causing Arseneau to drop everything to try to fight Viel. This also led to another scrum breaking out and when everything else settled Arseneau collected a two-minute minor and 10-minute misconduct, Viel a pair of minor penalties, and a pair of matching minors for Florian Xhekaj and Ian Mitchell.
Before the Rocket power play could even begin, Lucas Condotta was sent to the box for playing the puck off the faceoff dot with his hand and moved it to a four-on-four period. That extra bit of space is all the Rocket needed to take the lead back as Brandon Gignac worked behind the net and fed Joshua Roy in the open slot for a third Rocket goal.
After Gignac threw down in a fight with Pitlick following a boarding hit on Roy, the Rocket moved back to the power play. Again it was Roy making things happen as the Rocket padded their lead with another goal. With a broken stick for the Bruins leaving them even more short-handed, Roy used that space to snipe his second goal of the game.
The third period was chippy right from the hop as some of the bad blood from the second period continued to boil over on both sides. Between the post-whistle shoves, the Rocket slipped into their defensive structure, inviting the Bruins in and absorbing the low-danger shots as they came. William Trudeau put the team short-handed however, going after Jimmy Lambert for a massive blindside hit at centre ice.
The penalty-killers continued their incredible performance, giving the Bruins no space to create anything, and any loose pucks were soon deposited out of the zone. Even as the Bruins continued to push for a way back into the game, the Rocket were there to deny them over and over again, grinding the minutes down with frightening efficiency.
The Bruins, with an offensive-zone draw, opted to pull Bussi for the extra attacker to try to finally break down the Rocket defence. Roy’s stick broke early in his shift, leaving him powerless to clear pucks and it ended up being a problem before long. Vinni Lettieri got a tip on a puck shot by Jordan Oesterle, and it suddenly became a one-goal contest late in the third period.
It didn’t matter much to the Rocket, who simply turned on the “score more goals” switch and piled on two quick goals to secure their lead once more. First was Owen Beck patiently waiting out the defence, then threading a pass through a pair of legs to Dauphin, who tapped it in at the back post.
Joshua Roy buried his hat trick goal into the empty net just 22 seconds later to put the game out of reach and secure a record-setting seventh straight win for the Rocket.
The game did end ugly as Viel tried to kick off yet another fight, this time against Mailloux, prompting multiple players and an official to hold him back.
Final Score: Laval 6, Providence 3
Laval now will have a week off between games before heading out on the road for a two-game stint against the Belleville Senators, with puck drop scheduled for 3:00 PM next Friday.
