After splitting their opening weekend on the road, the Laval Rocket returned home to the boisterous confines of Place Bell for their home-opener. Standing in their way were longtime rivals the Syracuse Crunch, who were bolstered by three former Rocket players in Joël Teasdale, Jesse Ylönen and Tobie Paquette-Bisson.
The Rocket entered without top defenceman Logan Mailloux, who had been called up to the NHL roster before the game. Alex Barre-Boulet had cleared waivers, however, and took Sean Farrell’s place on the top line while Farrell along with Riley Kidney were healthy scratches. William Trudeau replaced Mailloux next to Adam Engstrom, while Gustav Lindstrom slid into the second-pairing spot. Jakub Dobeš again got the start, with Connor Hughes serving as his backup.
It took all of 65 seconds for the Rocket to strike, thanks to the former Crunch star Barré-Boulet. Brandon Gignac stole the puck off of Declan Carlile, allowing Barré-Boulet to break in free on goal and neatly tuck a backhand through the five-hole to open the scoring.
Then, as these rivalry games often do, things got nasty. The veteran enforcers Vincent Arseneau and Kale Kessy tossed off the gloves, and what followed was a potential fight of the year, followed by something absolutely horrifying. After the pugilists were finally separated after a spirited, violent meeting of the knuckles, Arseneau waved a pair of broken fingers in the face of his opponent before being ushered off the ice.
Not wanting to be left out, Florian Xhekaj got in a tussle after the whistle, but found himself as the only one heading to the box as the Crunch got the game’s first power play. The Rocket penalty-killers were up to the task, with Jakub Dobeš making a number of key saves to keep the Rocket lead intact.
It wasn’t long before they were called upon again, with Gustav Lindstrom taking a seat for cross-checking. The Crunch ended up cancelling out their own advantage however, with Xavier Simoneau drawing a slashing call to even up the penalties. The Rocket did end up with an abbreviated power play of their own as Lindstrom exited the box, but the first Laval power play failed to increase the lead as the period trudged on. Both sides were unable to find much open room as the period approached its end, and the Rocket would head into the second frame with a one-goal advantage
Syracuse was the side to strike early in the second period thanks to a combination of sloppy play in the defensive zone and missed chance in the offensive zone for Owen Beck. After a missed one-timer went in transition the other way, the Rocket were unable to corral the loose puck as Lukas Svejkovsky poked it home to tie the game.
Svejkovsky followed up his goal by high-sticking Adam Engstrom inside the offensive zone, putting Laval back on the man advantage with less than five minutes played in the period. This time the Rocket made sure to make their power play count as Luke Tuch redirected a pass from Barré-Boulet across the front of goal. Joshua Roy was right on top of the play to rifle it under the crossbar and restore the Rocket’s lead.
Syracuse refused to go away quietly though, hounding the Rocket in their defensive zone and forcing a young team into making mistakes that forced Dobeš to come up with save after save. Unfortunately an errant pass from Engstrom ended up on the stick of Ylönen, who fed Jaydon Dureau in the slot for a game-tying goal.
While the Rocket were dominating control of the offensive zone, the Crunch were finding plenty of ways to keep the game close as they capitalized off any small errors made by Laval. The two sides headed into the second intermission tied, with a big third period in front of them.
A Crunch interference penalty kicked off the third period and gave the Rocket power play all the space it needed to restore the lead in just over a minute. Engstrom sent Barré-Boulet ahead into the offensive zone, with the veteran forward finding Roy all alone in the upper slot. Roy made no mistake as he wired a rising wrist shot over Mat Tomkins’s shoulder to make it a 3-2 game.
The Rocket pressure continued to ramp up, with Luke Tuch beating his man to the outside and flicking a pass to the net-front for Florian Xhekaj. Max Crozier had no choice but to take Xhekaj down, and put the Rocket power play back on the ice.
The man advantage was predictably all over the Crunch, with Roy just barely missing his hat trick goal early in the advantage. That was followed up by Filip Mesar putting another beautiful pass on a tee for Jared Davidson, with Davidson misfiring on his own one-timer attempt.
The Roy/Barré-Boulet connection was back in action shortly after the power play expired, as the Rocket pushed their lead up to two goals. A harmless turnover behind the Crunch net ended up on Roy’s stick and he fed it back to Barré-Boulet who snapped home his second goal of the night.
The onslaught kept on coming as the veterans contributed up and down the lineup, finally putting the game pretty well out of reach with just over 11 minutes to play. A harmless shot from Gustav Lindstrom fluttered off to the side of the Crunch net, where Xavier Simoneau crashed the net to poke home his first goal of the season.
Simoneau followed that up by suckering his former teammate, Paquette-Bisson into taking a penalty while he was on the Crunch bench, and giving Laval another man advantage. Even with the game entering cruise control, the Rocket kept the pressure on and didn’t give the Crunch any sort of opportunity to claw back into the game.
Even with the game in hand, Xavier Simoneau had no problem continuing his pesky ways as he drew Dylan Duke into a fight, with both players being sent to an early shower for their troubles. Even a late tripping call on Laurent Dauphin wasn’t enough to give Syracuse a late spark as the Rocket snuffed out their power play to grind out the final minutes of the contest.
Final Score: Laval 5, Syracuse 2
These two sides will square off on Saturday afternoon with a 3:00 PM ET puck drop. It’s likely Connor Hughes will get the start while someone will draw in for the injured Vincent Arseneau.