It has been a tough week for the Laval Rocket as they’ve made their trek through Pennsylvania to end the month of November. They’ve had two extremely strong efforts end in 5-3 defeats due to suspect penalty-killing and just the slightest bit of finishing touch abandoning the team. They were looking to turn their fortunes around as they rolled into Allentown for a showdown with the Phantoms.
With Rafaël Harvey-Pinard going on waivers for a 24-hour period earlier in the day, the veteran forward was unavailable for the Rocket, who had to tweak the lineup once again. Alex Beaucage slotted onto the third line with Lucas Condotta and Xavier Simoneau in response. On defence, Zack Hayes replaced Gustav Lindström on a pairing with Adam Engström. As expected, it was Jakub Dobeš getting the start with Connor Hughes serving as his backup.
The opening minutes of the contest were chaotic to say the least, as Alex Barré-Boulet pushed an early shot wide, and then on his next shift ripped a long-range shot off the crossbar behind Parker Gahagen. The Phantoms weren’t exactly rolling over for the Rocket either as Samu Tuomaala snuck in behind Logan Mailloux for a breakaway chance that was fended off by Dobeš.
As the end-to-end action continued, Owen Beck found a wide-open space in the offensive zone, and ripped a shot on goal. Jared Davidson, acting as a floating screen, got a bit of the puck and deflected it by Gahagen to open the scoring.
The pace of the game continued to ramp up as the Phantoms and Rocket traded chances at both ends of the ice, with both Gahagen and Dobeš making a number of big stops. Laval’s pressure yielded the game’s first power play, but as the second unit went to work, Riley Kidney got a stick into a Phantom player’s skates and cancelled out the advantage. Before Kidney could be escorted to the box, Florian Xhekaj gave Hunter MacDonald a light shove in the back and also found himself heading to the box.
After two abysmal games’ worth of penalty-killing, the Rocket special-teams unit, and Dobeš especially, stood tall to keep the one-goal lead intact. While the Phantoms had taken some of the momentum back with their power play, the Rocket began to wrest it back at even strength as the period wound down.
Eventually it was the continued pressure, and some keen awareness that gave the Rocket a second first-period goal. Hayes loaded up and put a heavy shot on net, Gahagen made the initial save, but the puck had leaked in behind him. Laurent Dauphin swooped in, sweeping the loose puck in before the Phantoms’ netminder could fall back on top of it.
While the Phantoms tried to stir things up at the end of the period, the Rocket were happy to head into the intermission with a two-goal cushion.
The intensity of the first period did not wane in the opening minutes of the second. The Rocket continued to forecheck relentlessly and force the Phantoms into tough situations. Every puck that went back into Laval’s end was quickly turned the other way as the Rocket used traffic in front of net to pile on scoring chance after scoring chance.
Despite the Rocket dominating the entire period, it was the Phantoms who ended up with a goal. Jacob Perreault collided with his own teammate in the neutral zone, resulting in a turnover heading into the Rocket zone. With Perreault out of the play, the Phantoms took advantage and Elliot Desnoyers cut the Rocket lead down to one.
While the Rocket surrendered just three shots in the entire period, the one that went in appeared to take some of the wind out of their sails. They were still commanding the puck in all three zones, but passes that were landing in the first period were just missing, and shots on net were missing wide in various directions. Laval would need to avoid the same mistakes they made earlier in the week as a crucial third period lay in front of them.
Laval’s continued inability to find another goal to put their foot down on an opponent came back to bite them very early in the third period. After generating multiple looks on net to start, one little opening gave the Phantoms a tying goal with Rodrigo Abols sneaking it through traffic and past Dobeš.
Things then began to play out much like they had in the previous losses this week. Anthony Richard caught Logan Mailloux flat-footed and took a stretch pass from Ethan Samson to break in alone on goal. Richard’s speed gave him plenty of space to rip one by Dobeš.
That deficit soon became two goals as Jacob Gaucher was given all the space in the world to bury his seventh of the season, putting the Rocket in yet another hole late in the game.
With time not on their side, the Rocket pulled Dobeš for an extra attacker in a desperate attempt to avoid a third straight defeat in Pennsylvania. With 2:05 left on the clock, the Rocket finally found a third goal with Beaucage firing one by Gahagen to cut the deficit down to just one goal.
The next shift, after Dobeš went back to the bench, it was Rocket captain Condotta who nearly found the tying goal in the final minute. Gahagen continued to deny the Rocket in the dying seconds, and a desperate selfish play from Davidson resulted in a final clear and sent Laval to another loss to end the month of November.
Final Score: Lehigh Valley 4, Laval 3
The trek to their next destination is sure to be a tense one as the Rocket head off to Syracuse next for a Wednesday night meeting with the Crunch.
