It had been an incredible week for the Laval Rocket, stringing together two come-from-behind wins to keep their point streak alive in 2025. While trailing 2-0 on Friday night, the Rocket stormed back to steal a 3-2 win in regulation thanks to a game-winning goal by Owen Beck. Last night, they had a rematch with the Utica Comets inside the confines of Place Bell.
There were a pair of lineup changes for the Rocket as Joshua Roy was out due to injury. Riley Kidney was inserted into the lineup, while Jared Davidson lined up with Beck and Filip Mesar. The defensive group remained the same, but would be without Josh Jacobs for the rest of the season as he underwent knee surgery. Connor Hughes got the nod in net as expected while Cayden Primeau took the backup role.
Things did not start admirably for the Rocket for the second night in a row, with Rafaël Harvey-Pinard taking a strong hit from behind on the first shift that left him shook up. On the following shift, Ryan Schmelzer continued to be a massive thorn in the side of the Rocket as he broke in on an odd-man rush and beat Hughes far-side to open up the scoring.
In a lot of ways, the game continued to mirror Friday night’s contest as the Rocket began to dominate control of the puck on every shift, but the Comets looked dangerous on the counter at every opportunity. In fact, it looked like the Comets had soon doubled their lead, however the officials huddled together and ruled that Hughes had frozen the puck before Xavier Parent knocked it in.
Laval’s continued pressure inside the offensive zone also gave them the game’s first power play with seven minutes left in the first period. However, their struggles to get clean looks on net plagued them again like it had in previous games. They had looks on net, but the final finishing touch continued to escape the Rocket, leaving them trailing by a goal as the first period ticked on.
The pressure remained there for the Rocket, but the chances actually directed at Isaac Poulter were not enough to break the goose egg, so the team entered the first intermission down 1-0 to the Comets.
Period two didn’t start on a great note for the Rocket as they found themselves without William Trudeau, who exited the game with an undisclosed injury after the first period. The bad news kept rolling as Tyler Wotherspoon was called for slashing, forcing the Rocket penalty-killers into an early high-leverage situation. It wasn’t pretty, but the Rocket managed to do what they couldn’t on Friday night and kill off an early Comets power play to keep their deficit at just one goal.
While the Rocket were getting their offensive legs underneath them, the Comets continued to pick apart the smallest gaps in the defence. Eventually they got a puck on net in a spot where Hughes couldn’t corral it, and eventually Nathan Légaré swooped in and was able to lift it over the pile to double the Utica advantage.
Thankfully for the Rocket, Schmelzer handed them a golden opportunity to cut into the lead almost immediately as he tripped up a Laval player in the offensive zone. Without Roy’s distribution talents, the Rocket power play struggled to find the soft spots in the penalty-kill coverage, and resorted to Logan Mailloux hammering long-range shots on net with limited effect.
As the play returned to even strength Gustav Lindström added to the frustration with an interference penalty. Laval’s penalty kill battled through to get another strong kill, but had plenty of work ahead of them as they headed into the second intermission trailing by two. Comebacks were not rare for the Rocket this week, but it was a tall order for the team on Saturday night.
In need of a huge spark in the third period once again, the Rocket were handed a gift as Kidney drew a double minor for high-sticking, putting Laval on a four-minute man advantage. The ineptitude continued for the Rocket, as they managed only a few shots on Poulter, only one of which troubled the Comets netminder even slightly.
With their backs to the wall down two goals, the Rocket seemed happy to just leave the car in neutral as the game ticked away shift after shift. The only offence seemed to be generated by passing the puck to Noel Hoefenmayer at the point, but in most cases his shots were easily stopped or blocked. Before long, Parent slipped by Mailloux to latch on to a leading pass, and he neatly tucked his chance through Hughes to make it a 3-0 game.
To compound things further, Adam Engström and Lindström took back to back penalties, giving the Comets a lengthy five-on-three advantage to work with. In perhaps the only bright spot of the evening, the Rocket penalty-killers put in another massive shift to give the Comets nothing on their two-man advantage while they tried to look for any kind of comeback attempt.
It was the shallowest of consolation prizes as the Rocket had a very late five-on-three of their own. Alex Barré-Boulet collected a Lucas Condotta rebound and rifled it by Poulter to at least prevent the shutout in defeat.
Final Score: Utica 3, Laval 1
Laval has some time to lick their wounds and assess the injuries to both Joshua Roy and William Trudeau before their next game. They’ll clash with the Hershey Bears on Wednesday night at Place Bell.