After a strong end to the weekend where Laval took three out of four points against the Toronto Marlies, they found themselves staring down another one of their divisional rivals in the Rochester Americans. While the Rocket sat on top of the AHL’s North Division with 32 points, the Amerks were not far off with 27 points in fourth place.
The Rocket were still without Jakub Dobeš who was recovering from the injury that knocked him out of Friday’s contest against Toronto, so Connor Hughes got the nod once again. Vincent Arseneau was absent after dealing with an illness the previous two days, leading to Sean Farrell lining up on the fourth line with Florian Xhekaj and Luke Tuch. The recently acquired Noel Hoefenmayer had just arrived in Laval on Tuesday and was not yet ready to join the lineup.
It was a nervous start for the Rocket as passes were missing sticks and the Americans seemed to be in every spot the Rocket also wished to occupy. Despite the Rocket’s less than enthusiastic start, they were managing to keep the shots against to a minimum and allowing their offence to find its legs. It wasn’t long before that came to pass as Jared Davidson snuck in along the boards to swipe a loose puck. With a clear lane to the net, he moved in and ripped his 11th goal of the year by Devon Levi to give Laval a very early lead.
A lengthy offensive-zone shift, extended by the talents of Owen Beck, quickly turned into a lengthy defensive-zone shift after the opening goal. The Rocket, unable to get a change on the Amerks’ counter-attack were trapped in their own end, and eventually it led to Farrell taking a hooking penalty and sticking Laval on the penalty kill.
Laval’s penalty-killers did a fantastic job at making life easy for Hughes, and Farrell was able to exit the box and get right to work on the next offensive-zone shift. The five-on-five period wasn’t going to last long as Riley Kidney got under the skin of Josh Dunne with a slash, resulting in a penalty on the Rocket forward and Dunne being sent to the box for diving on the same play.
There wasn’t much offence to come out of the extra space on the ice, and soon both Kidney and Dunne exited the box with the Rocket still holding their one-goal lead. At five-on-five it continued to be the Rocket guiding play, but their final pass let them down on multiple occasions. The effort was still enough to enter the first intermission leading by a goal.
The strangely low-event game continued for the Rocket and Americans heading into the second period, with both teams struggling to establish much of an offensive presence or rhythm.
Unfortunately for the Rocket, their penalty issues continued with Adam Engström taking a seat for hooking Konsta Helenius in front of goal to take away a scoring chance. Laval again did a flawless job to hold off the Rochester power play, limiting the Amerks to just a few shots on net.
In the chaos following the power play ending, Rochester took advantage of sloppy defensive-zone play by the Rocket. After a failed clearing attempt, and Tyler Wotherspoon opting to lay a hit while ignoring the puck, Riley Fiddler-Schultz ripped one past Hughes to tie the game.
Instead of an offensive push in response, on the following shift it was Luke Tuch being called for cross-checking. After fending off the Rochester man advantage with relative ease earlier in the game, the Rocket broke down enough for Ethan Prow to hammer a slapshot by Hughes midway through the game.
Things continued to spiral from there when a Logan Mailloux attempt was sent the other way. William Trudeau initially broke up Isak Rosen’s attempted pass to Konsta Helenius. but Xhekaj overskated his spot on the back check while Trudeau couldn’t recover enough to stop Rosen from flicking a second-chance shot over the shoulder of Hughes to double the Rochester lead.
Even a late Rocket power play brought more struggles than help. Rochester continued to press Laval, generating a pair of great short-handed chances that, luckily for Laval, didn’t end up in the back of the net. Despite the shots being close, the Rocket entered the second intermission trailing by two goals, and lucky to not be down more.
The woes continued into the third period for the Rocket, who opened the frame with Beck ripping a shot straight off the crossbar behind Levi. That attempt did not count as a shot, and in the nine minutes that followed, the Rocket could not put a single puck on net to try to cut into the Rochester advantage.
To pile on, Engström took a shot from behind that sent him into the boards, drawing a response from Logan Mailloux in his defence, and resulted in matching minor penalties. While the game was at four-on-four, Engström was called for knocking a loose stick out of an opponent’s hands, and made it a four-on-three power play for the Americans.
Laval did manage to fend off the man advantage despite an official getting in the way of a crucial clearing attempt, and on the next shift drew a penalty of their own for a power play inside the final three minutes. The Rocket pulled Hughes to make it a six-on-four advantage, trying to pull off a miracle comeback. There wasn’t one in the cards as Levi came up with multiple big stops to send the Rocket to a disappointing loss on home ice.
Final Score: Rochester 3, Laval 1
Laval now has a few days off before going on the road to the Atlantic coast this week, with their first game being against Hartford on Saturday. Puck drop is set for 6:00 PM ET.
