It was very much the second act between the Laval Rocket and Toronto Marlies after the feisty game the day before. The fact that Cedric Paré had declined quite a few fight requests during the game after injuring Patrik Laine in the NHL pre-season, then celebrating his shootout winner by taunting the crowd, ensured that the second game would pick up where the first one ended. The question was how Laval would respond — to Paré, and the shootout loss — less than 18 hours later.
Laval started with a furious tempo, with Jared Davidson and Owen Beck creating havoc in the offensive zone. It took more than five minutes before Toronto even registered a shot on goal. By that time, Laval had managed two high-danger chances.
Midway thorough the first period, Adam Engström got a great feed from Beck and placed a shot just out of reach of Marlies goalie Dennis Hildeby to give Laval the lead. He was the one who gave the crowd permission to throw quite a few teddy bears onto the ice (as a certain someone may have predicted in the EOTP chat).
The Marlies used the long break that followed to work out what they needed to change after being outplayed. With the game resumed, they took over command of the play
A soft call from the refs for a hook by Alex Barré-Boulet gave the Marlies the chance to equalize. They only needed 21 seconds to draw level, after some chaos near Connor Hughes’s net.
With 4:35 left in the period, a bouncing puck got deflected off Engström’s stick. In order to stop the breakaway, the Swede had to bring down the attacker, taking the Marlies to the power play again. The Rocket played a good penalty kill, but with about a minute left there was a battle on the defensive blue line and another weak call from the referees on Xavier Simoneau to give the Marlies a five-on-three power play.
Hughes made a spectacular leg save to keep the game level. As time expired on the Simoneau penalty, Toronto’s Jacob Quillan sent Josh Jacobs down with a high stick, and Laval got an opportunity to play with an extra man.
The play evened out a bit in the second period. However, after an offensive zone mishap, the Marlies came in on a two-on-one, with Gustav Lindström as the only defender covering the pass, this gave Robert Mastrosimone an opening, and the Rocket went down 2-1.
Directly after the goal, the Rocket pushed with a unit consisting of Engström, Logan Mailloux, Joshua Roy, Davidson, and Barré-Boulet who came close to scoring after en excellent pass from Roy. Without a goal, they had an uphill battle to face in the third period.
First, Lindström got a chance alone with the goalie. Then, as the Marlies tried to break out from the zone, Beck intercepted the cross-seam pass and he made no mistake on his shot, putting the puck in the top corner.
A set play off the faceoff gave Roy a great chance after a feed from Lindström, but no goal.
With 10 minutes to go, Laval had an offensive-zone faceoff. A quick turn later and the puck was in Laval’s net.
Simoneau then got taken down along the boards and a huge scrum ensued. In the end, there was only the initial penalty called, and Laval went on the power play. Hughes is forced to make a save on a breakaway, and on the return counter the puck goes from Roy to Barré-Boule to Laurent Dauphin for the equalizer.
The Rocket turned the game around with a great effort from Luke Tuch, who got the puck to the front of the net where Vincent Arseneau scored the go-ahead goal.
Rafaël Harvey-Pinard took a bad tripping penalty with three minutes to go, and Laval ended up on the sharp end of the stick to try to win the game in regulation. Hope was fleeting, as the Marlies needed just three seconds to tie the game once more.
After a faceoff in Toronto’s zone, Owen Beck fired the puck from quite far out, and scored with just 24 seconds to play. Toronto didn’t have time for an answer, and Laval made it three points in two games versus a difficult opponent.
Final score: Laval 5, Toronto 4
It really has become Owen Beck’s team. The support cast is good, but when things matter it is Beck who grabs the bull by the horns and gets it done. You get the feeling that the other players are looking to Beck, now the team’s leading scorer, in those situations as well.
The Rocket will enjoy a couple of days off, then host the Rochester Americans on Wednesday night.
