After a disheartening 4-1 loss on Friday night snapped the Laval Rocket’s three-game winning streak, they took to the ice once again against the Syracuse Crunch on Saturday. Friday’s loss was a frustrating effort for the Rocket as they were unable to finish off their chances, while the Crunch picked apart every small Rocket error.
Pascal Vincent shook up his lineup just a bit, demoting Logan Mailloux to the third pairing and inserting Zack Hayes on the second pair in place of Josh Jacobs. Brandon Gignac would miss out with an injury, allowing Luke Tuch to rejoin the fourth line, while Luke Cavallin earned another start with Connor Hughes serving as the backup.
After an extremely sluggish start to the game on Friday, the Rocket and Crunch sprinted out of the gate to start the afternoon clash. The Crunch attempted to open the scoring as Gabriel Fortier threw a shot on net that Cavallin couldn’t corral, creating a scramble where the Rocket barely kept the puck out inside the opening minutes.
However, their response was equal in measure as Joshua Roy pounced on a rebound in the slot, firing a clean look on Brandon Halverson in close. The Crunch netminder was up to the task, flashing out his glove and taking away a sure goal from the Rocket winger. On the next shift, the Rocket were nearly able to open the scoring again as Halverson was fooled by a dump-in off the glass, resulting in the puck clanging toward the net, but hitting the post.
The Rocket continued to suffer many of the issues that plagued them in previous losses. They had back-to-back power-play opportunities, but outside of a chance by Owen Beck they never threatened the Crunch at all. Ending the pair of man advantages with just two total shots left the game scoreless heading into the final minutes of the first period.
The bad blood from the previous day was clearly still on the mind of the players as the horn sounded for the intermission, with Lucas Condotta and Max Crozier kicking off a scrum that brought both teams together as the period ended. Despite multiple players grabbing hold of each other, just Condotta and Crozier were penalized, meaning the second period would start at four-on-four.
Cavallin was crucial for the Rocket as the Crunch swarmed deep in their zone at four-on-four, but even with the extra pokes and prods Laval kept their rivals from getting on the board. As Condotta exited the box, he was able to send Xavier Simoneau in on and odd-man rush to the offensive zone. Simoneau opted to cut back to the middle and beat Halverson glove-side to put Laval on top just over two minutes into the period.
Following Simoneau’s goal, Mailloux was called for interference and stuck the Rocket in a tough spot having just taken the lead. Laval’s strong penalty kill again flustered the Crunch, with Dylan Duke hacking down Condotta and negating their own advantage after just 34 seconds.
Despite the abbreviated power play, the Rocket still lacked a second goal to give themselves a bit of breathing room. Things got a lot more difficult for the Rocket when Mailloux was whistled for hooking, and showed his displeasure with the call in such a way that the officials also assessed him a 10-minute misconduct.
After some incredible penalty-killing on Friday night and in previous games, the Rocket finally yielded a goal to an opposing power play. While they killed off most of Mailloux’s minor, Gabriel Szturc found some open space at the faceoff dot and wired one past Cavallin to tie things up with around half the game left to play.
While the Crunch were beginning to dictate the pace of play, the Rocket were doing a strong job at trying to create havoc around Halverson and looking for rebounds. After Halverson made one stop, Crozier took exception to Roy poking for a loose puck and cross-checked Roy in the face, giving Laval a four-minute power play.
At no point during the man advantage did the Rocket come remotely close to breaking the tie as Syracuse kept them very easily to the perimeter. As soon as the penalties expired, the Crunch pushed the play the other way, with Conor Sheary putting a puck right into Jesse Ylönen’s wheelhouse. The former Rocket winger had no problem tucking it by Cavallin at the side of the net to put Syracuse on top late in the period.
That lead soon became two goals as Sheary sent Crozier ahead with speed as the Rocket tried to catch up on the odd-man rush. Crozier waited out a sliding Adam Engström before rifling a shot on the short-side post to send the Rocket into the intermission trailing by two goals.
The struggles continued into the third period, as Alex Barré-Boulet took a penalty for slashing just 90 seconds in. The Rocket again frustrated their opponent enough to draw a penalty of their own, leading to an abbreviated Rocket power play after the four-on-four period expired. The power play failed to do much outside of passing the puck around the outside of the zone without ever generating actual chances on net.
As the play returned to even strength a puck was flipped out through the neutral zone, and over the hand of Engström, giving the Crunch an odd-man rush on Cavallin. Mailloux was muscled off the puck and former Rocket forward Joël Teasdale buried a fourth straight goal for the visitors to all but put the game out of reach.
The Crunch handed the Rocket a late lifeline as Lucas Edmonds went off for cross-checking. The frustrating passing patterns continued, but eventually Beck found enough space to tee up Barré-Boulet to cut the Crunch lead down to two goals.
The goal seemed to bring the Rocket out of their funk, with Roy becoming a man possessed as he flew through the offensive zone looking for openings. The chances were there as Halverson found himself under siege, but Laval struggled to get sticks on the rebound chances in front of goal.
Eventually the Rocket had the puck held deep inside the Crunch zone and Pascal Vincent opted to pull Cavallin to try to jumpstart a late comeback. What happened instead was a puck bouncing out of the zone, with Barré-Boulet putting in a nonexistent effort to try to track it down, leading to Gabriel Fortier tacking on a fifth goal to close out the game.
Final Score: Syracuse 5, Laval 2
There is plenty of time for the Rocket to stew on this loss. They’re next in action on Friday as the Abbotsford Canucks come to town for a two-game series at Place Bell.
