An uneven start to February saw the Laval Rocket still sitting atop the AHL’s North Division, but their lead was growing more tenuous by the day as their rivals nipped at their heels. The injury bug continued to plague them as Filip Mešár was the latest casualty to miss game time. The Slovak’s injury left the Rocket short-handed in the forward group, forcing the team to play with seven defenders once more.
That, however, brought a huge boost for the Rocket defence as David Reinbacher was cleared to play and joined the Rocket after missing the season up to that point after sustaining a serious injury in a pre-season game. He formed the second pair with Tyler Wotherspoon while Logan Mailloux and Noel Hoefenmayer made up the top pair. On the third pair was William Trudeau and Adam Engström while Connor Hughes got the start after Cayden Primeau’s rough game on Monday afternoon.
While it wasn’t a game you could consider lifeless, the start from both sides was very tentative as the Rocket were potentially still shocked after Monday’s loss. Laval’s best chance came from Sean Farrell speeding in off the wing, but his chance was swallowed up by Dom DiVincentiis without a rebound. As has become tradition in a lot of recent Rocket games, they were the first ones to head to the penalty box as Hoefenmayer took a seat.
Laval did well for the majority of the kill, but a centring pass by Dominic Toninato hit off of David Reinbacher and bounced right back to Toninato, who buried it easily while Hughes was facing the wrong way.
Manitoba’s goal seemed to wake up the offensive instincts of the Rocket and the home side decided to just not give the puck up for nearly three straight minutes following the opening goal. Logan Mailloux was a one-man wrecking crew as he knifed through the opposing defence in search of a game-tying goal. While his first chance was denied, the loose puck was batted free by Sean Farrell, and in front of net Mailloux roofed it by DiVincentiis to tie things up 1-1.
After their goal it was all Rocket for the remainder of the period as they tilted the ice firmly in their favour looking for more goals. The combination of Joshua Roy and Owen Beck caused the Moose fits, but Laval had to settle for entering the first intermission tied, but dominating the shot counter in a big way.
Despite the strong end to the first period, the Rocket surrendered a goal on the first shot the Moose put on net in the second. C.J. Suess carried the puck in deep, dragging Wotherspoon out of position and opening space for Ben King. The Moose forward slipped away from Roy and fired a shot through Hughes to put Manitoba back on top 2-1 less than 90 seconds into the period.
Looking for a spark of another kind, Florian Xhekaj took it upon himself to try to get his teammates fired up with a fight against Mark Liwiski. The Rocket forward charged forward to land a few shots, but after taking a few in return, the larger Xhekaj chose to drag Liwiski down to the ice and play to the crowd on his way to the penalty box.
Laval again began to control the puck deep in the offensive zone, but a shot by Rafaël Harvey-Pinard quickly turned into a rush the other way. Hughes made the first save, and with the puck sitting in his crease Wotherspoon cleared it away … right into a retreating Harvey-Pinard and into the Rocket net.
Once again the Rocket refused to roll over and the undersized duo of Farrell and Barré-Boulet combined for yet another scoring play. Barré-Boulet bolted into the zone, leaving the puck for Farrell at the side of the net. Through a maze of bodies, Farrell fed it across the crease to Barré-Boulet who buried the goal.
Just over a minute later with an offensive-zone draw and Xhekaj out of the box, the Rocket struck again. Xhekaj won his faceoff clean back to Mailloux along the blue line and Mailloux bided his time to find a lane. The defenceman managed to do so and threaded a perfect shot to the upper corner to knot the game up at three goals apiece.
After Hughes and Trudeau combined to keep a scrambling puck out of the net, the Rocket turned the shot-generating machine back on. The makeshift fourth line nearly put the Rocket back on top as Logan Nijhoff cut across net and lifted his backhand shot just wide of goal. On the same shift he clanged a clean look off the goal post and DiVincentiis was able to just fall on top of it to prevent the ECHL call-up from scoring.
The Rocket began to falter a bit, struggling to clear their zone for a long stretch and the Moose kept pushing them back as they looked to break the deadlock. Laval survived long enough for Beck to cut through the neutral zone and draw a penalty for the Rocket. The man advantage hammered chances around the net, but as the period came to a close they had managed only one on net as the second frame came to an end after a chaotic 20 minutes.
The Rocket kicked off the third period much like they had the second, but allowed a goal just over a minute in. Reinbacher was pulled down after playing a loose puck away from his own net, and Tyson Empey was able to grab the puck from him. Empey drove to the net and put it on a platter for Suess, who tapped home his second goal of the night to put Manitoba back on top.
The comeback did not come like it had in previous periods. In fact the opposite happened as the Rocket dug their hole deeper. Brad Lambert drove into the zone and fed Jaret Anderson-Dolan who easily poked the pass beyond Hughes to make it a 5-3 game early in the third period.
Things continued to get worse for the Rocket. After Axel Jonsson-Fjällby was stopped on a clean breakaway chance, a scrum broke out as the Moose ganged up on Beck. Despite the Rocket being the aggrieved party, they ended up having to kill another penalty as Beck was hit with a double minor for roughing and Nijhoff was also given a penalty for coming to Beck’s defence. The Rocket’s penalty-killers put in a fantastic shift, giving the Moose nothing in terms of scoring chances as they kept their deficit at just two goals.
With just over two-and-a-half minutes left, the Rocket were finally able to get Hughes to the bench to try to pull out some sort of last-second miracle after spoiling a strong first half of the game. It took the Rocket about a minute, but their relentless pushing with the extra attacker finally broke down the Moose. Beck collected a pass below the goal line, quickly turning to put it on a tee for Hoefenmayer in the slot, and he drew Laval within a goal.
With under a minute left on the clock the Rocket had to work fast to try to pull off the comeback. The best chances were pushed just slightly wide of the net before the final horn sounded, sending the Rocket to a second straight loss, and their third in the last four games.
Final Score: Manitoba 5, Laval 4
Laval will be off on Thursday, and will look to get a measure of revenge on Friday when they have their rematch with the Moose.
