In what turned out to be a disappointing end to March, the Laval Rocket saw their lead atop the AHL’s North Division dwindle to just a single point as the drive for a division title drew down to the final six games of the season. They entered their weekend series with the Calgary Wranglers down three of their top offensive stars. Adam Engström was on recall in Montreal, Laurent Dauphin was on the injured list still, and Alex Belzile was absent due to the birth of his child.
Belzile’s absence saw Owen Beck promoted to the top line with Sammy Blais and Sean Farrell, while Florian Xhekaj moved into the third-line spot. On the fourth line it was the professional debut for the newly signed Joshua Nadeau, slotting in with Dillan Bentley and Tyler Thorpe. On defence Josh Jacobs was reinserted next to Marc Del Gaizo, while David Reinbacher and Luke Mittelstadt made the top pairing.
Despite the Wranglers being among the AHL’s worst teams, the Rocket spent the opening minute playing on the back foot and took a penalty as William Trudeau took a seat for holding. While the Wranglers managed a few shots on net, the Rocket penalty-killers did well to keep them all to the outside and allowed Kaapo Kähkönen a fairly easy time as Trudeau escaped the box.
Back at even strength, the Rocket began to look more like the team fans had come to expect in this game as they exploited any mistake Calgary made. Reinbacher broke up a play in the neutral zone, allowing Farrell to motor ahead into the offensive zone uncontested. With time and space, Farrell threaded a slap-pass to Owen Beck in the slot, with Beck deflecting it over the goaltender to open up the scoring.
The Rocket’s pressure began ramping up at the right time as the first period ticked on, and even inside their own zone their doggedness on the puck was able to draw a penalty for the first time on the night. Not for a lack of trying, Laval’s man advantage wasn’t able to sneak a second goal by Calgary in the period as Del Gaizo rang a shot off the iron, and Jared Davidson’s one-timer caught the outside of the net.
As the first period neared its final two minutes, a Luke Tuch holding penalty put the Rocket back short-handed, and gave a disjointed Calgary side a chance to find a tying goal. The Rocket’s penalty-killers put forth another strong effort, with Beck creating short-handed chances out of thin air and killing off most of the penalty on his own. With a second kill in the bag, the teams headed to the first intermission with Laval leading 1-0.
The Rocket lead didn’t survive the opening minutes of the second period, despite Laval continuing to create the better offensive opportunities. Beck, trying to do a touch too much inside his own zone, turned the puck over in front of his own net. The puck was quickly cycled through and Rory Kerins was able to deflect a chance by Kähkönen to tie things up.
Kerins’s goal left the Rocket suddenly looking entirely bewildered on the ice in all three zones, and Calgary took total advantage of that. With the puck seemingly stuck on stick of William Stromgren, the Rocket could only watch as he spun off the half-boards and fired a low shot by Kähkönen to put Laval down 2-1 in the second period.
After a kerfuffle between Thorpe and Lucas Ciona, the game moved to a four-on-four stretch, and Calgary continued to take advantage of the Rocket neglecting the details inside their own zone. As Sammy Blais tried to do too much on his own, the Wranglers simply moved play the other way. Dryden Hunt burned his way around Nate Clurman before feeding Kerins in the slot to make it a 3-1 game.
From there the wheels fell off entirely for the Rocket as the defence stopped defending, and the goaltending quit. The Wranglers piled on three goals in under two minutes to run the score up to 5-1, and got Kähkönen pulled after a disastrous start in net.
Things wouldn’t improve much from there as Reinbacher was called for boarding and the Rocket found themselves on the penalty kill again. While the Rocket killed off Reinbacher’s penalty, Condotta instantly replaced him in the box as he was called for high-sticking.
The Rocket did manage to fend off Condotta’s minor, and as he left the box they found some consolation as they cut the deficit down to three goals. Josh Nadeau worked the puck back to the point for Luke Mittelstadt, and the rookie defenceman let a shot go that was last touched by Tyler Thorpe as it was redirected to make it a 5-2 game.
Three goals was not the most insurmountable deficit the Rocket had ever faced, but after a disastrous second period it was a massive ask of the team to try and salvage at least one point on the night.
While the Rocket were stemming the bleeding in the third period, the offence was struggling to find their teeth as the final period rapidly ticked away. With just over 10 minutes left the Rocket had just 14 total shots on goal, and hadn’t really put anything dangerous towards the net since Thorpe’s goal in the previous period.
As the game entered its final five minutes, it was clear there wasn’t a comeback in the cards for the Rocket, even with Hunter Shepard on the bench for the final four minutes. Despite having the extra attacker, the Rocket’s best players with the net empty ended up being both goalposts as the iron made three stops on Calgary empty-net opportunities.
The one saving grace for the Rocket on a night where everything went wrong was that the Syracuse Crunch also lost in regulation, providing the thinnest of silver linings on Friday night.
Final Score: Calgary 5, Laval 2
The Rocket won’t have long to stew on this defeat, as they’ll have a rematch with Calgary on Saturday, with puck drop set for 3 PM ET.
