The Laval Rocket’s homestand against the Charlotte Checkers to kick off the conference final did not go well, with the Checkers handling the Rocket by lopsided scores in back-to-back games last week. Laval struggled to match the intensity of the Checkers , and couldn’t keep their mistakes to a minimum as they dropped both games. To further compound things, they lost Laurent Dauphin to a late hit in Game 2, leaving them without their leading playoff goal scorer, and one of their top players overall.
Dauphin’s absence prompted the lineup to be shuffled a bit with Oliver Kapanen sliding up to the first line and Brandon Gignac into the second-line-centre role. On the fourth line, Luke Tuch returned to the lineup providing a more physical edge. On defence the only pairing to not be shuffled was the second pair of Adam Engström and Gustav Lindström. David Reinbacher and Noel Hoefenmayer formed the top pair, with Zack Hayes and Logan Mailloux on the third pair. In net, Pascal Vincent went back to Cayden Primeau once again, trusting his starting goalie to hold the line once more.
Laval started the game on the right foot, but could not find the bit of finishing touch that they needed to get on the board early against Kaapo Kahkonen. What felt slightly different from the previous two games, was that the Rocket were doing well to quickly move the puck out of their own zone. But without a goal to their credit, Charlotte began to wrest control of the game.
Like the first two games too, the Rocket defence got caught sleeping at the wheel when Riley Bezeau snuck in behind Adam Engström. Jesse Puljujarvi lifted a pass behind the Rocket defencemen, allowing Bezeau to latch on to it, then calmly lift a backhand over Primeau’s glove to give Charlotte the lead in Game 3.
Laval pushed back instantly, springing Alex Barré-Boulet on a clean breakaway, but his shot clanged cleanly off the crossbar and Joshua Roy couldn’t corral the rebound. Kapanen did finally get a follow-up, hammering a slapshot over the net harmlessly. To compound the run of bad luck, Florian Xhekaj found himself in the box for slashing, threatening to turn the tide against the Rocket quickly.
The constant pressure of Rafaël Harvey-Pinard allowed him to generate a short-handed breakaway and draw a penalty of his own to make it four-on-four. Laval managed to shift the momentum as they started their abbreviated power play, only for the officiating to bring it to a halt. Engström shovelled a puck forward for Kapanen, only for Kapanen to have his stick slashed in two, and no call to come from it.
The Rocket again had to enter the first intermission trailing against the Checkers, and looking for some way to break out of their current offensive rut.
Instead of finding a way to battle back, the Rocket threw up an early white flag as the Checkers scored just 53 seconds into the second period. Logan Mailloux made a baffling decision to not play a loose puck that was closing in on Primeau. The Rocket netminder didn’t anticipate that and couldn’t freeze the puck. It allowed John Leonard to easily skate it around Primeau and bury it to make it a 2-0 game.
On the following shift, the defence collapsed once again, with Reinbacher trying to chase down the puck while Jared Davidson couldn’t cover the open man. It allowed Bezeau to grab the loose puck in space and beat Primeau for his second goal of the game. Pascal Vincent took his timeout to try to get something resembling a gameplan together to mount a comeback.
Two minutes later, Will Lockwood easily drove through the slot, completely uncontested by Reinbacher, and buried another goal to make it 4-0 and end Primeau’s afternoon once again.
Laval’s power play managed to snap their run of horrid form as their patience was finally rewarded. Owen Beck circled into the slot, waiting out the defence for a lane to open up and finally got one. Beck put his shot on goal, and Davidson got just enough of the puck to deflect it by Kahkonen.
Things then quickly worsened for Laval as Engström took a hit behind his net and was unable to get off the ice, forcing play to stop at the other end. Engström, with some help from Reinbacher, was helped off the ice and instantly to the locker room, leaving Laval even more short-handed on defence.
While Engström managed to return after a brief absence, the Rocket deficit grew further as the defence was beat once again. With the puck along the boards, three Rocket players converged into a scrum, but Charlotte made its way out of the pile with the puck, and Sandis Vilmanis buried a fifth Checkers goal to all put the game away.
The Rocket ended the period on the penalty kill as Engström, out of pure frustration, tripped up John Leonard. The Rocket did manage to kill most of the penalty, but would start the third period with 21 seconds of penalty time left on the clock.
Charlotte was content to just run out the clock in the third period, and the Rocket showed a startlingly low amount of fight as the period ticked on. The offence couldn’t get anything going, and Charlotte just continued to dump the puck away. There wasn’t even a real chance at a comeback as Charlotte gave the Rocket nothing and the Rocket didn’t try all that hard to find second options.
The game mercifully came to a quiet end as the Rocket even skipped the part of the game where half of the team takes 10-minute misconduct penalties. A third straight lopsided loss left the Rocket down to their final life.
Final Score: Charlotte 5, Laval 1
CLT leads series 3-0
Game 4 is set for Tuesday, with puck drop at 7 PM ET in Charlotte. It’s unclear who will get the net and if any further lineup changes are coming after a third straight loss.
