With their point streak snapped against Utica last weekend, the Laval Rocket took the ice once more to try to get a new streak started. Standing in their way were the conference-leading Hershey Bears, a team that had previously pulled off a major third-period comeback in the previous meeting in December.
The Rocket entered the game without William Trudeau who was listed as week to week with an injury suffered over the weekend. They were also without Joshua Roy who was set to miss two months with an injury suffered when he fell into the end boards on Friday night. On the positive side, Owen Beck was returned to the team earlier in the day and slid in between Jared Davidson and Filip Mešár on the third line. Vincent Arseneau resumed his role on the fourth line while Zack Hayes drew in on the third pair, Cayden Primeau again got the start for Pascal Vincent.
After coming out of the gates slow against Utica, the Rocket started much more positively on Wednesday night, with their pressure forcing Aaron Ness into an early penalty and giving Laval a chance to jump out to an early lead. The man advantage looked much more lively as the Rocket worked their cross-ice feeds to try to open up opportunities on Hunter Shepard, but their best chances went just wide.
Despite the positive start things turned very rapidly against the Rocket after the Bears killed off the opening power play of the game. Jake Massie snuck in on a line change and found himself on a partial break with Rafaël Harvey-Pinard trying to chase him down. Massie kept just a step ahead and beat Primeau clean to open the scoring in favour of Hershey.
In an effort to try to get things going again Vincent Arseneau drew Dalton Smith into a mutually agreed fight inside the offensive zone. For Arseneau it was a poor choice as Smith uncorked a flurry of hard punches and the Rocket enforcer had little chance to respond before the tussle ended.
The offence seemed to have shifted itself into neutral after allowing the opening goal, with the Rocket struggling to create a steady, forward pressure against a strong Bears side. It was only made worse with Rafaël Harvey-Pinard heading to the box for high sticking and putting the Rocket in a tough penalty killing spot.
Xavier Simoneau and Laurent Dauphin did a commendable job at smothering the Bears’ opportunities for 90% of the Hershey advantage. In the small window where they slipped it resulted in Chase Priskie getting lost in the coverage and being able to sweep home a Primeau rebound to double the Hershey lead.
The fourth line did respond with a strong shift, with Luke Tuch digging away to try to get a loose puck by Shepard, but the Bears netminder managed to seal the puck away just before it crossed the line. When the intermission horn sounded, the Rocket once again found themselves trailing, and in need of a much stronger effort in the second period.
The effort was there to start the second period as the Rocket second line was all over the Bears at every turn, with Xavier Simoneau and Lucas Condotta taking turns being denied on the goal line by Shepard. Despite all of that pressure it was brought to a grinding halt when Simoneau was called for holding the stick behind the net.
Instead of playing defence on the penalty kill, Laval went right back after Hershey and started generating a mountain of chances while short-handed. First was Florian Xhekaj streaking in off the wing then ringing his shot clean off the crossbar. He was followed by Lucas Condotta getting a breakaway chance, that he wasn’t able to finish as he was taken down without a call, but all those short-handed rushes had allowed Laval to escape the penalty kill unscathed.
With Simoneau free from the box, the Rocket went right back to grinding out chance after chance on goal, but Shepard continued to be a stubborn obstacle in their way. The Rocket were seemingly on the verge of breaking their goose egg, while holding a 7-1 shot advantage, but the lack of finish was starting to create frustration inside the offensive zone. As passes started getting a touch sloppier, the Bears began to pick their spots and started generating clean looks on Primeau as the period wore on.
Eventually that frustration boiled over as Xavier Simoneau thought Aaron Ness embellished a tripping call, sparking a heated kerfuffle in the offensive zone. Simoneau managed to escape a second penalty, leaving the two sides at four-on-four heading into the second intermission, with Hershey still leading by a pair of goals.
The Rocket needed a big third period to avoid a second straight loss, however the officials didn’t seem much obliged to help them out as Vincent Arseneau took a massive hit from behind into the boards. In the fracas that ensued it ended up being another four-on-four period, with the initial hit on Arseneau not even being called a penalty.
The Rocket again had a golden chance right off the draw as Alex Barré-Boulet was sent free on a breakaway chance, but he fired his chance high over the net and kept the Rocket off the board as Laval still tried to find their first breakthrough of the game.
Not content with playing at five-on-five apparently, the Rocket kicked off another scrum after Owen Beck drove hard through the crease for a loose puck, and clipped Shepard on his way in. Hendrix Lapierre and Zack Hayes took a seat for each side and the extra ice finally allowed the Rocket to get on the board.
Noel Hoefenmayer worked his way up the boards, waited a moment, then fed a pass to the middle where Sean Farrell ripped one into the back of the net to finally break the shutout bid.
Just over a minute later, the Rocket again used their relentless pressure to find a game-tying goal that they richly deserved. Tyler Wotherspoon flipped a puck in to Barré-Boulet who was all alone in front of goal, but Barré-Boulet had his shot saved by the quick pads of Shepard. The puck remained loose and Laurent Dauphin barrelled into the crease and swept the puck into the net and erased the two-goal deficit for Laval.
The Rocket continued to pour on the pressure, but Shepard, after two quick goals, seemingly snapped back into form with a glove save and then a stunning pad stop on a Hoefenmayer partial breakaway chance.
While the refs were content to let the two teams play through obvious infractions, it didn’t do much for the game except for causing Jake Massie to suffer a lower-body injury as he attempted to interfere with Rafaël Harvey-Pinard.
Despite the poor start, the Rocket managed to make it to overtime and claimed a huge point after trailing by multiple goals again.
The overtime frame didn’t need much time for the Rocket either as they found a second point on their second shift. Adam Engström took a lay off from Lucas Condotta and wove his way through the Bears zone, sharply cut to the net, and roofed the winning goal over Shepard.
It was yet another huge Rocket comeback, but it came with a bigger cost for the Bears who lost Michael Sgarbossa on the game-winner to what looked like a serious injury.
Final Score: Laval 3, Hershey 2
The Rocket will head out on the road to round out this week and will have a showdown with the Hartford Wolf Pack on Friday night.
