After a disappointing Game 3 showing in which the Laval Rocket failed to get out of first gear, they once again squared off with the Cleveland Monsters with the chance to advance in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Mental lapses and a lacklustre power play led to the Monsters snagging a 3-1 win on Sunday afternoon and putting the pressure on the Rocket to rebound in rapid fashion to avoid a do-or-die Game 5.
While the loss was far from his fault, Cayden Primeau ceded the net to rookie Jacob Fowler, who had won the opening two games of the series. The forward group also got a bit of a shakeup as Brandon Gignac returned to the lineup after missing Sunday’s game. Gignac slid into the second-line wing spot, bumping Owen Beck down to the fourth line in place of Luke Tuch.
The Rocket came out of the gates much stronger than they did in Game 3, but the Monsters were there step-for-step with them. Cleveland took advantage of a strong press by the Rocket in the defensive zone to create lanes, but Fowler was there to swallow up any chances that got close to him. Meanwhile the new-look fourth line became a shot-generating machine with Beck and Florian Xhekaj both getting clean looks, but denied again Jet Greaves.
After a quiet showing, it was the all-purpose second line and pairing that broke open the game with a grinding effort inside the offensive zone. A loose puck was claimed by William Trudeau, who battled through the Monsters’ defence into a better shooting lane along the goal line and threw a shot into the pads of Greaves. It looked like the Cleveland netminder had made another strong save, but the puck had barely trickled through, and Xavier Simoneau swooped in to sweep it over the line for the opening goal.
The Rocket followed up their goal with another strong shift from the top line, drawing a penalty in the process and giving themselves a chance to break the game open inside the first 10 minutes of play. While the Laval man advantage was much more in sync than it was on Sunday, Greaves continued to be a standout performer as he robbed the Rocket again and again.
Just as it looked like Cleveland was slowly clawing the momentum back in its favour, Dylan Gambrell launched a puck out of play, and put the suddenly dangerous Rocket power play on the ice. Off the draw, Joshua Roy made a diving poke to push the puck to Logan Mailloux along the blue line. Mailloux faked a shot before dishing off to Alex Barré-Boulet. who threw a low shot on net where Laurent Dauphin directed it by Greaves to double the Rocket lead.
The Rocket power play didn’t have to wait long to widen the gap as Cleveland continued a first-period march to the penalty box. A botched pass by Mailloux threatened to bring things to a halt, but a quick recovery put the puck back on the stick of Barré-Boulet. The veteran winger quickly pivoted to put the puck back in Mailloux’s wheelhouse and the defenceman blistered his shot through Greaves to make it 3-0.
Greaves kept the Monsters from getting fully run out of the building as the Rocket fourth line went back to work. Jared Davidson burst into the zone and fed a pass to Beck from behind the net, but Greaves squared up to rob Beck for the second time on the evening.
Cleveland began to try to antagonize more of the Rocket players as the period wound down, resulting in Beck and James Malatesta each sitting four roughing and shifting the play to four-on-four. The Rocket didn’t add any more goals to their lead, but entered the first intermission in full control of the contest after 20 minutes.
Laval got right back to work to kick off the second period, but as they tried to push for a fourth goal Lucas Condotta was whistled for interference and sent the Rocket to their first penalty kill of the night. Condotta’s penalty did nothing to slow down the Rocket onslaught as they generated four quality chances while short-handed and allowed only one shot on Fowler to kill off the minor penalty.
Laval’s penalty kill was just a brief glimpse of how the second period was going to go between these sides, namely the fact that the Rocket just refused to give Cleveland any space to operate. Laval ground out offensive-zone time and chances, but Greaves was continuing to be the only reason that Cleveland still had a chance.
A bit of luck turned the contest back into a competitive affair late in the second period thanks to a brief lapse of judgment by the Rocket. Oliver Kapanen threw a hard dump in around the boards that Mailloux was unable to handle, starting a brief odd-man rush for the Monsters. While it appeared the play was offside, the officials let it continue and Luca Del Bel Belluz snapped a shot past Fowler to make it a 3-1 contest.
The Rocket spent the final few minutes suppressing a suddenly lively Cleveland attack, getting into the second intermission with a two-goal lead, but needing another goal or two to comfortably close the series out.
Laval came out swinging to answer the third-period bell. Their lines were again generating clean chances on every shift, but the scoreline remained 3-1 as the final 10 minutes approached. Greaves continued to steal the show as he repeatedly flashed out the glove to take sure goals away from Sean Farrell and Kapanen. Even with the lead, it was all Rocket as they tried to find a bit of insurance down the stretch, but Greaves seemed stubbornly set to not allow another goal.
After behaving himself all night, Xhekaj finally had enough of Malatesta and kicked off a kerfuffle with the Monsters forward, leading both players to take a seat for roughing. Before the four-on-four period could even get under way, Trey Fix-Wolansky hammered Gustav Lindström with a cross-check to put the Rocket back on the power play. In what was an all-too-familiar scene of Greaves stonewalling the Rocket attack to keep it a two-goal game.
With just under four minutes left, the Monsters had no choice but to pull their goalie as they looked to survive for another game. However, a deft chip play by Xhekaj spurred the Rocket toward the empty net, and while Dauphin was slightly off target, Simoneau drew a cross-checking call to send the Rocket to a late power play.
It ended up being important as the Rocket turned yet another power-play opportunity into the goal that sealed the series. Barré-Boulet pivoted off the half-wall, throwing a puck to Farrell in front of goal and Farrell slowly bumping it to a wide-open Dauphin. The Rocket forward finally bested Greaves to bury it glove-side and pushed it to a comfortable 4-1 scoreline.
Cleveland’s usual suspects reacted negatively to this, and on the next shift they handed the Rocket a five-on-three power play that killed off the remainder of the game and sent the Rocket into the next round.
Final Score: Laval 4, Cleveland 1
Laval wins series 3-1
With the gentleman’s sweep completed, the Rocket will move on to face the Rochester Americans. Schedules have not been released yet, but the best-of-five Division Finals will likely begin at Place Bell by the start of next week.
